


Duo and the Fey

by The Manwell (Manniness)



Series: The Brothers Maxwell [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Boston, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, London, M/M, Magic, Scotland, Squick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:03:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6356353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/The%20Manwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something terrifying happened in the shadow of a Scottish castle where Duo and his older brother, Solo, spent a summer with their estranged grandfather twelve years ago.  </p><p>Something Duo can neither remember nor forget.  </p><p>Something that has been waiting for his return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fey of the Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 (Fey of the Forest) was written for Claraxbarton's 31 Days of Smut (March, 2016)
> 
> Prompt: fey!Trowa
> 
> Rated M for sexual situations (male/male), coarse language, & possible squick (Hey, traditional fairy tales don’t shy away from blood and other bodily fluids, so this fic doesn’t, either.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music I wrote to: "Spectrum" by Florence + The Machine

_“Are you lost?”_

_The boy nodded, biting his lip to stifle his sobs.  Tears gummed his lashes, but his cheeks were dry.  His knees poked out from beneath his denim shorts, displaying raw patches of skin that slowly blossomed red._

_“I can heal your wounds.”_

_The boy held still as a small hand reached out and a single fingertip glowed over the abrasion.  Left knee.  Right knee.  Perfect skin appeared where the scrapes had been._

_“Cool,” the boy breathed, eyes wide with wonder.  “How’dyou do that?”_

_“It’s what I do.”_

_“What else can you do?”_

_“Quite a bit more.  Would you like to see?”_

_The boy’s eyes sparkled.  His grin revealed a missing tooth.  The new one hadn’t grown in yet.  He had freckles across his nose.  “Heck yeah, I do!”_

_“Your speech is different from those who have come here before.”_

_The boy shrugged.  “I know.  I’m only ‘quarter.”_

_“A quarter of what?”_

_“Maxwell.”_

_“What’s a Maxwell?”_

_“What I’m almost not.”_

_“Oh.  What’s your name?”_

_“Duo.  What’s yours?”_

_“Trowa.”_

_A small hand reached out and the boy uncurled one arm from around his shins.  Two small hands met in the shadows beneath the forest canopy: a too-warm, sweaty palm fitted against one that was cool and smooth.  Ten little fingers curled and tightened in an unbreakable grip._

_“Do you believe in magic, Duo?”_

I came awake with a gasp, flailing and smacking my hand against the tempered glass of the bus window.  “Fucking—shit!” I swore around my pounding heart.  I was sweating.  The back of my neck and my T-shirt collar felt damp and clammy.

“Yo, li’l dude,” Solo whispered, offering an apologetic smile in response to the irritated glares my swearing had drawn from the other passengers.  Jesus fried a chicken, you’d think none of them had ever heard an American curse a blue streak in a Hollywood action movie.

 _It’s all true,_ I wanted to say, _we crass Americans spit out swear words in between mouthfuls of our breakfast cornflakes!  It’s what we **do.**_

Unfortunately, freaking out in the middle of a REM cycle was my schtick.

I lowered my head, curling forward until I hit the dorky polyester upholstery of the seat in front of me.  “Are we there yet?” I sighed.

Solo rubbed my back.  “Soon, D-man.  Soon.”

After all these years, I still couldn’t figure out why the worse I felt, the more idiotic nicknames he came up with.  The bus swerved through another roundabout and I closed my eyes.  I knew I wouldn’t sleep.  Couldn’t.  Hadn’t been able to get eight hours of straight shuteye in years.

That fucking dream.  Always the same.  Always terrifying for no Goddamn reason at all.

Less than an hour later, we arrived and I shakily disembarked.  I was probably hungry, but as usual, I just couldn’t feel it.  It was always like this, like the factory had left out the stomach in the Build Your Own Duo Kit.

“I’m this close to gnawing on your braid,” Solo informed me, hauling both of our backpacks and me into the nearest pub.

We had a deal, my older brother and I – if he ate, I ate.  Not that I ever got any enjoyment out of it.  Just suffered through every tiresome bite and exhausting series of four-to-ten chews.  Not that I ever really felt full.  I’d been to see one specialist after another.  No one knew what the hell was wrong with me.

I surveyed what I could see of the cozy village beyond the window at our booth and sighed.  This trip – this whole stupid theory of Solo’s – it was crazy.  We were spending money we didn’t have for what?  A total crapshoot, that’s what.

Solo interrupted my thoughts, kicking my boot under the table.  “Shut it off, butt-brain.  You’re ten French fries behind.”

“They call ‘em ‘chips’ here, moron.”  Here.  Scotland.  Dumfries, Scotland.

Jesus, just – Dumfries.

Seriously, there was so much you could do with a name like that.  I remembered I’d gotten a good giggle or hundred out of it the last time I’d been here.  The only other time I’d been here.  The best and worst summer of my life.

I stuffed the requisite number of fucking fries into my mouth and chewed obnoxiously at Solo across the table.  He grabbed for the complementary bottle of ketchup that had come with our order – and which looked older than both our ages combined – and aimed its open squeeze top at me menacingly.  “Hold still or you’ll get this in the eye, shithead.”

Voice muffled around the potato stuffing between my teeth, I returned, “Ever had a salt shaker shoved up your ass, jerkwad?”

His fingers flexed.

I locked and loaded.

“Would you be wanting anything else?” the waitress chose that precise moment to ask, breaking our standoff.

“Naw, thanks.  We’re good,” Solo told her with a wink.

She blushed, bit her lip, and twirled away, pencil scribbling on her order pad.  Ten bucks said she was doodling her phone number down.  Once upon a time, I’d been jealous of Solo’s easy charm.  But, hey, I’d been a twiggy little brother for so long that I wouldn’t know what to do with a hot chick if she actually looked at me.

I was still waiting for that “hot damn!” moment you were supposed to feel when you saw a girl you liked.  Sure, the waitress was pretty.  And yeah, Solo’s last half dozen girlfriends had been cute or whatever.  But it wasn’t like I had wet dreams about them.

I could only ever remember dreaming about one thing.

I scowled.

“C’mon.  Let’s pick up the rental car,” Solo said, startling me out of my thoughts.  I glanced down and blinked at my basket of lunch.  It was empty.  Holy hell.  This had to be some kind of record.

Solo drove us out of the quaint town and turned onto a road I’d only traveled twice, but I still remembered it like it was yesterday.

_“Do you think he’s nice?”_

_“Our grandfather?”_

_“No doofus, the tooth fairy.”_

_“The tooth fairy’s a girl, butt nugget.”_

This time, I leaned an elbow against the open window and asked, “Do you think it’s changed much?”

Solo shrugged.  “Gotta’ve been.  It’s a tourist attraction now.”

I sneered.  And then I saw our destination rising above the horizon.

My heart pounded.  I felt a little dizzy and my mouth filled with too-warm saliva.  I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of the cool, damp Scottish breeze against my face.

“It’s gonna be OK, li’l man,” Solo promised.

It took too much energy for me to argue with him.

The rental car pulled into the dirt parking lot.  Solo pocketed the keys and got out.  I lurched out of my side of the car before he could do his asshole butler routine and open the door for me with a mocking flourish.  The fresh air settled my stomach, but my knees felt weirdly weak.  Kind of stinging and trembly.  I leaned back on the door to close it and stuck my hands in my pockets as I looked up at the castle.  Caerlaverock Castle.  The ancestral home of the Maxwells.

It looked just as majestic and magical as I remembered.  The triangular moat that hugged each of the fortress’ three sides, the landscaped lawn, the drawbridge, the leaded glass windows... damn, but this place was cool.

Solo and I didn’t belong here.  Not really.  Our dad had been the bastard son of the lord – or, I guess him being from Scotland an’ all made him a _laird._   When our parents had been alive, no one had ever mentioned our Grandfather Maxwell.  After the accident, though, Solo and I hadn’t had anywhere to go except foster care, and that was when the old guy had appeared.  Like some kind of grey-haired knight from outta the mist.

Maybe life here would’ve been OK.  Gramps hadn’t been alive long enough for us to find out.  One summer and then off to a boarding school in Boston and that had been all she wrote.  He’d bought the farm.  A heart attack or something.  He’d set up a tuition fund for me and Solo, though.  I thanked him every day for keeping us outta random foster homes nine months out of the year.  And then when Solo had turned eighteen, he’d gotten legal guardianship and I started enthusiastically clearing out of my dorm room for holidays.

All in all, it hadn’t been so bad.

Still, I wondered what might have been.

My chest ached.  Not for the first time, I debated if I could afford to take up smoking.  Damned expensive habit but burning something down with only your breath was fucking appealing.  I wanted to exhale smoke rings like a mythical beast.  Wanted to preen my scales and puff at the cold shoulder of the castle Solo and I had called home for three short months.

“You ever find out why you didn’t get this rock?” I asked my older brother.

He shrugged.  “Not in the cards, I guess.  Besides, how the hell would we pay for the up-keep?”

“Yeah.”  It was probably better off as a tourist attraction.  At least we were alone.  Today was Monday; business hours were Tuesday through Sunday.

“C’mon,” Solo said, nodding toward the ropes cordoning off the parking lot.  “We didn’t come all this way to admire the view.”

Gritting my teeth against the simmering heat in my wobbly knees, I followed him.

We hopped the ropes and I hissed, clenching my right hand into a fist.  Rope burn.  Just my luck.

I trudged through the field to the woods that fanned out in the shadow of the castle.  The wind puffed at my face in huffs and sighs.  My left cheek tingled and then started to sizzle, but hell it wasn’t _that_ cold outside.

The closer we got to the tree line, the less I wanted to be here.  I could feel my muscles trembling.  My belly twisted, churning the greasy lunch I’d choked down.  We were half a dozen paces away from the edge of the forest when everything in me just went, “ _Nope.”_

“This is stupid,” I heard myself protest, my knees locking, and the sting flared into a _burn._  My feet no longer moved.

“It is not.  Move your ass, dumb-bro.”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, Duo.  You’re eighteen.  Due to start university this fall.  A full fucking scholarship.   And the state’s not gonna pick up the doctor bills anymore.  You know I can’t afford that shit on my wages.  We have to sort this out and this is the last place you were, y’know… _you.”_

I looked up and met my brother’s gaze.  “Yeah, I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I can’t move my legs.”

He blinked.  “Seriously?”

I was tempted to sink into a pile, wiggle into a hole, and pull it in over myself.  Hide forever.  What the hell was wrong with me?

Wrapping my arms around my waist, I bit my lip and nodded.  I literally could not pick up my feet.  I didn’t want to know why.  I just wanted to go back to the rental car, to Dumfries, to London, to Boston.  Fuck, anywhere but here.

Solo marched over and grabbed my right arm.  I tried to uncurl my fingers from around the invisible flames licking over my palm, but I couldn’t.

Grabbing onto the waistband of my jeans, Solo gritted out, “Lean on me, dipshit.  We’re doing this.”

I knew we were.  We started moving.  It would have been a three-legged race if I could get even one of mine to cooperate.  I was a marionette with its strings cut.

“Tell me again what happened,” he invited.  “What do you remember that day you, um…”

_Got lost in the woods._

I hung my head, weary right down to my soul.  “Just being scared shitless.  I was hungry.”  That day had been the last time I’d felt hunger pangs deep in my belly.  The last time I would have given my next breath for a stale peanut butter sandwich.

Solo dragged me through the tree line and I did my best to pull myself along, grabbing branches and kicking at deadfall with my boots.  My brother didn’t ask me if anything looked familiar.  It’d been twelve years and no small amount of land development ago.  Of course nothing looked familiar.  Besides which, my mind had twisted and tumbled this place thousands of times through the kaleidoscope of my nightmares.

Nightmares that could become real, apparently.  I flinched as a soft light glowed at me from the corner of my eye.  I turned, gaped at it.

It winked out.

“Did you see that?” I rasped to Solo.

“What?”  He craned his neck to scan the surrounding forest.  “Duo, _what?”_

I shook my head and faced forward.  “Noth-nothing.”

We struggled a bit further into the wood.  My knees still refused to support me, weak in the wake of the receding pain, and my feet felt heavy.  My head ached.  My cheek – the left one – still sizzled.  My right hand remained curled into a fist.

What the actual fuck was going on here?

“I gotta sit down,” I told Solo, and the fact that he didn’t argue with me told me how tired he was of hauling my pathetic ass through the forest.  I angled myself for a large, fallen bough and lowered myself onto it.

The forest was silent except for the breeze.

Solo turned in a circle, surveying our surroundings.  I didn’t know what to say, what to do.  Just sit here on my ass and wait for something to happen?  No, that wasn’t gonna work.

“I think,” I began, glancing warily up at my brother, “I gotta be lost.”

“No way.  I’m not goin’ through that shit again and neither are you.”

I sighed, shoving my bangs out of my eyes.  “Then we might as well go the hell home.”

We both knew that wasn’t an option.  I wasn’t entirely sure why I suddenly thought that this visit to the past was worth a shot, but something was out here.  Answers, maybe.  Or memories.  Something.

“Fine,” Solo gave in, fully as furious as I’d ever seen him.  “Fine, go get your dumb ass lost.  But you better get it un-lost in three hours or so help me God—!”

He pulled me to my feet and gave me a bear hug tight enough to crack my shoulders.

He stepped back, gripped my arms, shook me once, and then forced a tight smile.  “I’ll be back – right here – three hours.”

I nodded and watched him stomp off toward the tree line, the field, and the car beyond.  I set the hourly timer on my watch and slowly turned around.  Took a shuddering breath.

Where had I gone that day?  I’d been six years old and following a flicker of light.  A glowing butterfly.  A twinkling firefly.  A white humming bird.

Or whatever the hell it had been.

I took two steps toward the depths of the forest and I saw it.  That little dancing speck of light.  Like a mote of dust in sunlight only it was a cloudy day.  Gloomy under the tangled boughs.  My mouth dried.  My throat shrank.  My tongue swelled.  My heart squeezed and fluttered in my chest, beating a hundred times a second.

I followed the light.

Across deer trails, around tangles of brush, past twisted trees and weathered rocks.  And then I saw something that I did recognize.  A sheltered, moss-covered clearing.  A ring of tiny white flowers blossoming in the shadows.

I remembered this place.  My hands were shaking, my skin stinging – my knees, my hand, my cheek.

“Are you lost?”

I almost screamed.  I whirled around, wild-eyed and panting as I scanned the forest.  No one was behind me.  But there had to be.  There had to be.

And there was.

A small hand slid around the trunk of a tree and a small face angled toward me.  A fall of brown hair.  A green eye.

A child.

He stepped out from his hiding place and I gaped at him.

“You remember me, Duo,” he said with a shy smile.

I shook my head in denial of what I was seeing.  My dream – was I awake right now?

“This isn’t possible.”

He watched me for a moment before his expression lightened with understanding.  “Yes, I see.  About twelve years, isn’t it?”

And then, in the blink of an eye, the being standing before me wasn’t a child of six or so years old.  He was a man about my age.  Bare-chested.  Shimmering leggings woven from something that looked like silk thread crisscrossed up from his ankles to his waist.  The garment was translucent except for where the threads overlapped more heavily between his hipbones and slender thighs.  On each of his knees, I could see something – some kind of dark markings – through the entwined fibers.

“You remember me,” he insisted, his voice deeper now but still soft and melodious.  Soothing.  Frightening.

“What are you?” I blurted.

“I’m fey,” he said, tilting his head to the side.  “You do not know of us?”

“I—I’d really like to wake up now.”

He chuckled.  “You are awake, Duo.  I promise.”

My brain had stopped.  There was literally nothing in my head beyond disbelief.  Nothing in my throat beyond my own straining heart.

I watched, caught in the trap of his stare, as he moved closer.

“I’m very glad to see you again, but you shouldn’t have returned,” he breathed.  He was close enough to touch.  Close enough for the breeze to carry his scent to me.  I’d never smelled anything like him.  He was like… sunlight sparkling through leafy boughs.  He was like… the dust from a moth’s wing.  He was like… the laughing gurgle of a clear stream.

The wind shifted aside the hair that covered half of his face, revealing his cheek.  There was a dark mark there.  Like a tattoo, but raised.  A scar.  A dark green scar.  A design that I thought I ought to recognize.

“Duo,” he said, holding up his hands in invitation.  I looked down and one of them – the right one – had yet another dark marking on his palm.  It curled along each of his fingers. 

His hand.  His cheek.  His knees.  The exact same places on my body that were still unusually hot.

Could this connection – could _he_ – actually be real?

“How do I know you’re real?”

“What do you remember from your last visit?” he countered with earnest curiosity.

_“Are you hungry?”_

_My stomach gurgled again.  Cramped.  Howled with emptiness.  “Yeah.  So much.  I’m dying.”_

_“Here, eat this.”_

_I stared at the round, green and brown cake that was placed in my hand.  “Does it got bugs in it?” I checked._

_“No, it doesn’t.  I promise.”_

_“’Cause I’d eat it anyway,” I was quick to claim with pride.  “You wouldn’t even have to double dog dare me or double dare me or just regular dare me.”_

_“Why is that?”_

_I thought of my knees – good as new – and smiled at him.  “You’re my friend.”_

“Do you still trust me, Duo?” the young man – man, or something else – inquired.

I honestly didn’t know how to answer that.  Instead, I redirected.  It worked like a charm when nurses asked about shit I didn’t want to deal with.  “Are these tattoos?” I asked, pointing to the mark on his hand.

His fingers curled around it.  “No.”

“Well, what are they, then?”

He drew a breath.  “Burning shame,” he whispered and I looked up.  Agony.  The one green eye I could see was glossy with it.  This was a pain that I recognized.

“Hey, are you OK?”

He nodded, the soft smile returning.  “It’s better with you here.”

“But you told me I shouldn’t have come.”

“Yes, you shouldn’t have.”

“Why not?”

“Would you like to kiss me?” he asked suddenly and I jerked back, a tree trunk bringing me up short.  He didn’t pursue me, simply watched me, waiting.  Perfectly still.

“Uh, um, uh,” I stuttered, my guts going cold and then hot as my heart raced and my pulse purred beneath my skin.  “Why would you—I mean, what the hell kinda question—um, no?”

His smiled widened.  “I would like you to.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.  He was trying to distract me, using my own technique against me.  “Look, man, if you don’t wanna talk about your tatts, just say so.”

“Man?” he repeated flatly and I had never heard anyone anywhere pack as much resentment into a single syllable.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.  “Just a figure of speech.”

The mention of figures had my gaze running over his.  Jesus.  He was—I dunno.  He was something, all right.  Fey, he’d said.  Whatever that meant.  No way could he be some kind of magic.  I did my best to ignore how he’d been a small boy one moment and a slender young man the next.

My wristwatch beeped and I glanced at the display.  One hour was already gone and I didn’t even know how to ask what I was looking for.

“Do you remember my name?” he asked me.

I was pretty sure I did, but if I said it… wouldn’t that be like admitting that the dream was real?  And if that wasn’t a fiction, then what about my terror?

“Why do I dream about you?” I asked instead.

His gaze lowered.  A technique I also knew well.  He was considering lying to me.

“Never mind,” I continued, disgusted.  I turned to head back the way I’d come, bracing a hand on the tree trunk to give myself a push – a little extra momentum for the long trek.

“I will tell you.”

I paused.

“In exchange for an answer from you.  A truth for a truth.”

I turned around and nodded.  “All right.”

He said, “You dream about me – and this place – because you are a prisoner here.”

“Is that supposed to make sense to me?”

“It is an honest answer.  Now answer me, Duo: would you like to kiss me?”

I stared at him.  His smooth skin and soft hair.  His lips.  The utter greenness of his eyes.  The rolling planes of his muscular chest and arms, subtle but undeniable in their strength.  Lithe.  Sleek.  Mysterious.

“Yes,” I heard myself say.

He smiled again, wider this time and the forest was suddenly alight with his radiance.  He moved slowly closer to me.  The tree trunk at my back held me up.  My heart was pounding.  My lips were dry.  Was I seriously going to have my first kiss in the middle of a fucking forest in Scotland with some kind of non-human?

I lifted a hand and pressed my palm to the center of his chest just before he would have leaned in.

“What are you?” I asked again, unable to trust my eyes.

“I can save you, Duo, if you’ll let me.”

“Save me from what?”

“The thing you came here hoping to defeat.  No one understands it.  No one can explain it.  No one can heal you, but I can.”

“In exchange for what?”

The next smile he gave me was lopsided with sorrow.  “I remember you once accepted my help without reservation.”

“And I’m wondering if that was a mistake.”

He tilted his head to the side.  “Do you think I have some kind of power over you?”

“Do you?”

“Do you believe in magic?” he countered.

“I believe in getting straight answers.”

“And some answers will never be straight no matter how you stretch them out.”

I studied him.  “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you can help me.  How would you do that?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Well.  That’s a deal-breaker right there.”  I pushed him back.  Tried not to rub my hand over his skin.  Oh, God.

I glanced at the small, ethereal clearing over his shoulder and its ring of white flowers.  I could feel a pull of some kind, beckoning me toward it.

“No, not that way,” he said firmly, the sharpness in his tone drawing my gaze.

“What?”

“Come,” he invited.  “I’ll walk with you.”

I wanted to tell him that I didn’t need his help, but I wasn’t a total idiot.  If I got lost or injured, Solo would lose his fucking mind.  “Fine.”

And, sure enough, when I stumbled, his hands caught me under my elbows.  Rather than manhandle me, he simply let me lever myself upright.  “You’ve gotta be cold,” I told him as I paused to button up my jacket.

His lips quirked.  “It is impossible to feel a chill when you are burning.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.  “You look fine to me.”  Very fine.  Incredibly fine.  Every inch of him.  Jesus.

Just beyond him, another little light winked at me from a narrow, winding trail.  I leaned around his shoulder, intending to cross the path to investigate.

“No, Duo,” he said, spreading his arms to block my way.

“What is it?”

“Don’t follow the will o’ the wisp.”

“The will of the huh?”  I tore my gaze away from the hovering light and searched his face.  “Where does it lead?”

“You remember.  You’ve followed it before.”

I shook my head.  My chest ached with the pounding of my heart.  My hands felt cold.  The small hairs at the back of my neck stood on end.  “I don’t,” I replied.  “I don’t remember.”

“You do not wish to.”

“I have to.”  I met his solemn gaze.  “Something happened to me here that changed me.  I need to know.”

He stared at me for a long moment.  I held my breath.  Finally, he nodded.  “Stay behind me.”

I shivered and followed him along the trail.  The way it twisted right, then right again, then left over and over nudged something in my memory.  The feel of the brush scratching against my hands and clothes cleared away a layer of dust in my mind.

_“Come with me, Duo.  There’s something I want you to see.”_

_“Is it a good climbing tree?”_

_“Something better.”_

My feet moved easily now, answering a call I could feel in my soles.  _Closer, Duo.  Come closer…_

We turned left one last time and, over his shoulder, I could see a copse of trees.  Their trunks twisting and branches arching.  Druids praising the old gods.  The center – the focal point of their silent yearning – was pitch darkness.

Impossible.  It was only three-thirty in the afternoon.

My entire body shuddered, but my feet didn’t stop moving until I was literally a hair’s breadth away from bumping into him.

“What—” I rasped, my breath brushing my guide’s neck.  “What’s in there?”

Just then, the will o’ the wisp darted into the heart of the darkness.  It flickered – pulsed once – and illuminated the straining trees and their reaching arms.  It was only a brief flash of white light, but that was more than I could take.  More than I could comprehend.  More than I could endure.

I felt the pull and it drew me forward.  I stumbled – fell – slammed into his back.  My hands and cheek pressed against his skin.  My fingers curled, nails digging in, and I clung to him.

I whimpered, eyes open but seeing only horror.  “Trowa?”

And just like that, we were far away from that hellish portal and the terror it held.  I blinked and focused my eyes on a plot of forest like any other.  The trees were normal.  The sparse grass and patches of moss and last autumn’s carpet of moldering leaves.  No twisting deer trails.  No entrance to Hell itself.

There were strong arms around me, and my arms were wrapped tightly around someone.  My whole body was pretzeled around him.  My fingertips pressed against the bare skin of his back with such force that they ached under the strain.  A hand was gently petting my braid and for one crazy moment, I wondered when the fuck Solo had gone all huggy and paternal on me.

But then I inhaled and I recognized that scent of sunlit dust dancing over a laughing brook.

This wasn’t Solo.

I leaned back, my chin rubbing over his shoulder, and turned my face to look into his green eyes.

“What—what?” I asked, barely able to manage that one word.

Trowa continued to smooth his hand over my hair.  “That was the gateway.”

“To where?”

“My world.”

I shuddered, shivered, convulsed.  “An’—an’ wh-what I saw in th-there—”

“Duo,” he breathed.  “You should not have returned.”

Though his words were just as cryptic as before, I understood them now.  I understood what was wrong with me, why I’d felt like the walking dead for the past twelve years.  Why I drifted through life like a ghost.  The thing I had seen in that dark maw was—

Myself.  Some part of me – some echo or essence of my six-year-old self – was trapped in that moment.  Suspended on the threshold of another world.

How was this possible?  Just…  “How?”

“Kiss me,” he pleaded.  “Duo, kiss me.”

I hesitated and then it was too late.

His hands jerked and his fingers curled.  His spine bowed and his head snapped back.  I tumbled from his lap and he fell ass over teakettle behind the fallen tree trunk we’d been sitting on.  I scrambled up, leaned over, and stared in horror.

He twisted and rolled against the rotting leaves, flinching and whimpering, teeth gritting and eyes squeezed shut as the smooth flesh of his back was sliced open with ruthless precision.  Blood – green blood – welled up from the wounds.

I watched uselessly as an invisible hand and blade carved new scars, crisscrossing his skin like layered spider webs or maybe scattered cut flowers.  The outline was sketchy but familiar.  The five-pointed star of a splayed hand.  The profile of a face.  I stared in horror as every part of him that I’d touched – that had prevented my fall into the darkness – was sliced open.

“Trowa!  Tell me what to do!  How do I stop it?”

He grabbed for the fallen tree, tried to pull himself up.  I leaned further down.

“Ki—kiss,” he hissed and I pressed my lips to his.

It was probably the worst kiss in the history of ever.  My lips were chapped and our mouths were at an awkward angle.  My nose smashed into his cheek, but he relaxed, sighing out a thankful breath.  He tilted his head and his lips parted and then he was gently cradling my lower lip, gliding his tongue over it slowly – so slowly – as he breathed and hummed softly.

“Better?” I mumbled, eager to pull back before the party in my underpants got even more out of control.

“Yes, Duo,” he answered with blissful calm.  “Don’t stop.”

“Um—”  I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that, but I obliged, connecting our mouths, praying he’d keep that hot tongue to himself.

But he didn’t.  He pulled himself up onto the log, curled an arm around my waist and suddenly we were straddling the fallen tree with our mouths moving against each other, his tongue petting mine with tireless patience and persistence.  _Play with me,_ he seemed to say with every hot caress.

I wanted to.  Oh, how I wanted to.  Never wanted anything more in my life.  But—

“I’m afraid to touch you,” I confessed against his lips.

“Your touch is the only thing that can stop the pain,” he answered.  “Touch me,” he invited between kisses that rocked my entire being.  “Kiss me.  Don’t stop, Duo.  Please.  Don’t stop.”

I reached up to push the fall of his bangs aside, revealing the scar on his left cheek and both of his eyes and in the moment before our lips came together, I remembered—

_“What’re you gonna show me?”_

_“A special place.  A place where we can be friends forever.”_

_“Huh?  Like a—whoa!  What was that?  Did you see it?”_

_“No, Duo!  Don’t follow the will o’ the wisp!  No!  Come back!”_

_A winding path – right, right, left, right, right, left.  A game of chase.  Great fun – “C’mon, Trowa!  Can’t catch me?” – breathless giggles and then—_

_Trapped.  Darkness.  Sharp tongues and burning eyes closing in.  “TROWA!”_

_A hand reaching for mine, pulling me from the greedy, grasping talons of creatures I couldn’t begin to name._

_Cool fingers wrapped around mine.  Racing.  Running for my life.  Legs burning._

_The edge of the forest.  The sun was setting and I could see the evening star._

_“Go, my friend.  Hurry.”  He pressed his lips to my cheek.  The left one._

_“Trowa?”_

_“I’ll be all right.  Go, Duo.  Live.  Be free.”_

Free.  Trowa had freed me from the grasp of the demons in that unearthly blackness.  He’d freed me, and every place our skin had touched he’d been scarred.  My lips brushed over his and my fingertips traced the scars on his cheek.  I thought of the markings on his knees and his touch when he’d healed mine.  I thought of the mutilated skin of his right hand – the hand I’d clasped out of innocent trust – the very same hand that had hauled me from the edge of the abyss.

Trowa had been punished for all of it.  For defying those things in depths of the forest.  Even now.  His back where my hands and face had pressed into his skin was being flayed open.  They were still tormenting him.

“How do I get you out of this place?” I asked against his mouth, watching as his eyes opened.

“Don’t stop,” he repeated and his tongue slid between my still-open lips.

There were a thousand things I wanted to say.

_I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing._

_No condom._

_Shit, no lube, either._

_Whoa, Duo.  Assuming things much?_

_Why hadn’t I read any slash fiction on the plane?_

_You’re beautiful.  And I want to kiss you everywhere._

_Can this really help you?  Save you?  Jesus, Trowa, how do I **save you?**_

A thousand, thousand things I wanted to tell him, but my mouth was busy.  My hands were busy sliding over his cool skin, tracing the edges of old scars that were horrifying in their cruelty and beautiful in their faithfulness at the same time.  I mapped his bare chest and his soft groan slid over my tongue and down my throat.  I wanted to hear that sound again and again and again.  I withdrew from his mouth and pressed a panting kiss to his neck and, yes, there it was, purring up from somewhere in his chest to tumble along his throat and spill from his tongue.

“OK?” I checked.  “Still kissing.  Sort of.”

“Yes,” he hissed as I flicked my tongue over his collarbone.  His hands were moving over my hair, his fingers clenching and kneading.  I wanted his touch on my skin, so I reached for his hand, pressing my fingertips into the spaces between his and dragging it down to the hem of my shirt.  Down and under and up.

“Ah,” he approved, his fingers splaying on my side and beginning a slow, circuitous quest over my skin.  It belatedly occurred to me that I was too thin.  How could he find anything about my body appealing?  But his touch was irresistible.  I’d worry about what he thought of me later.  As long as he was touching me, his hand roving over me with reverence, I’d assume we were good.

I cradled the back of his head and angled him toward me, our mouths meeting with effortless familiarity now.  Our tongues moving against each other like lovers.

Lovers.  Oh, God.  Was that really where this was going?

I must have paused because he slid a hand around the back of my neck and sucked my tongue into his hot mouth.

_Don’t stop._

I didn’t.

My cock was pushing against the fly of my jeans and the trunk of the tree was pressing against my balls.  I rocked forward and my eyes nearly rolled up into my skull at the feel.

My jacket slid down my arms.  Our mouths parted long enough for my shirt to disappear.  Nimble fingers danced across the front of my jeans.

“Trowa—uhn…” I breathed against his neck, tasting him with tiny licks.  “Don’t stop.”

He tilted my chin up and our eyes met.  “We will leave this place together,” he vowed.

I nodded.  The button and zipper gave ground and my arousal surged forward, pulling the fabric of my boxers taut.  I swept my hands down his chest to his waist and hooked my fingers into the silken fabric of his clothing.  He shifted up and I tugged down.  With a wiggle of my own, the waistband of my underwear slipped past my hips and I was sitting on my discarded jacket and T-shirt.

A touch along my cock.  Cool and soft.  Teasing. 

Eager – too eager – to return the favor, I gracelessly gripped him and his entire body arched, bowing with feeling.  “Duo…” he begged, thrusting his hips forward into my fist.  I wrapped an arm around his waist – it was slick with either sweat or blood and at the reminder of his wounds, I nearly stopped, pulled back, but somehow he wasn’t in pain.  My touch seemed to be some kind of barrier from that skin-carving torment.  I was terrified for him, but I let _his-mine-our_ need push its way to the forefront of my mind.

 _Don’t stop,_ he’d said.

 _Don’t stop,_ I’d said.

I focused all my energy on our momentum until it took me over.

He slid onto my lap and our cocks brushed, bumped, rubbed together and were pressed between our naked bellies.  I buried my face against his shoulder and panted his name against his skin.  His fingers clawed across my back, burrowed into my hair, splayed against my arms and he pulled himself even closer.

“I’m so close, Trowa,” I confessed.  So close, but not quite there.

I felt him reach back, swipe his fingers across his own lower back, and then he kissed me, claiming my mouth with his feverishly hot tongue until my eyes slid shut and I was moaning for more.  For this to never stop.

Slippery fingers encircled my cock and pumped.  I mewled.  Shit—yes.  So fucking close.

Then he leaned forward, pressing against me until I was almost laid out on the log, but his arm around my shoulders held me up.  His hips slid forward again and that grip on my cock turned into something else.  Something hotter, tighter, completely encompassing.

I screamed into his mouth.  I wanted to tell him to stop – this had to be painful for him he was so fucking insanely tight!  But I was too breathless to utter even that single word.

“Duo,” he breathed and I heard that bliss in his voice and the sound of his happy pleasure coupled with his flesh squeezing my cock and—

I grabbed his shoulders, opened my eyes, met his gaze, and surrendered to the heat rushing out of my body and into his.  He held my blank stare even as he held me up and held me close.  Tiny, shallow breaths burst from my burning lungs as my cock twitched again and again inside him.  I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.  My heart stopped for a long, breathless moment.

Silence.

And then… thump.

Thump-thump.

I was still alive.  Blood was pumping through my being.  Blood and something else.  Something I could barely remember feeling: strength.  Something was different.  Different about me.  Different about my heart.  It felt scarred.  It felt like the designs carved into Trowa’s skin had spread to the inside of mine.  I felt… heavier.  More solid.  Less of a specter and more… man.

I marveled at the feeling, trying to figure out what it meant, but my brain was just not up to it.  Fuck.  I’d never come so hard or for so long in my life.  The infrequent times when I had actually summoned the energy to follow through on my morning wood had been little more than maintenance.  Scratching an itch.

This was no itch.

Trowa watched me.  His knees pressed against my sides, his silk-thread tights stretched taut between his thighs.

“Are you—” I panted. “—OK?  Can I…?”

“Don’t stop,” he repeated and I smoothed a hand over his leggings, pushing them down until he pulled his feet free.  Left one.  Right one. 

Then he sat back and my fingers brushed over his knees, mapping his scars.  “What can I do for you?” I needed to know, wondering if there was any possibility of him enjoying this.  I mean, it had sure as hell sounded as if he’d liked it, but logically that just couldn’t be possible.  “What do you need?”

“You are doing it,” he assured me, caressing my face.

Because I just couldn’t figure out how to ask him what I desperately wanted to know, I pressed my palms over his knees.  “Do they hurt?”

He shook his head and placed a lingering kiss on my cheek.  The left one.

I reached for his right hand.  His fingers were smeared with blood, tacky to the touch.

“How come I felt them?  I was burning exactly where your scars are.”

“I was attempting to warn you away.”

I looked up and accused, “I felt it inside the forest, too.”

He shrugged.  “You persisted in putting yourself in harm’s way.  It frustrated me.”

My lips quirked.  “Yeah, I’m pretty stubborn.”

He hummed.  “Yes.  Pretty...”  His knuckles glided down my throat.

Interlacing his sticky fingers with mine, I ran my other hand up from his knee to his hip, traced and caressed his still-hard length gently.

“Are you really OK?  The pain—?”

“Are _you_ hurt?” he asked with urgency, as if suddenly recalling that I was, in fact, a mere mortal.

“Are you kidding?  That was—“  I drew a shuddering breath.  The memory of it swept over my skin like a shower of sparks.  “No, damn it, it didn’t hurt _me,_ but you didn't—I mean, you just—!”  I did my best to mime and gesture my way through the rest of the explanation.

“Shhh,” he breathed against my lips, his gaze softening.  “I am not wounded.”

“Still, that can’t have been very good for you.”  The last bit came out in a mumble.

He tipped my chin up with a cool, sure touch.  “I needed it.  Need it.  Again.”

I gaped at him, too dumbfounded to even squeak.  His hand wrapped around mine where I was gliding my fingertips over his length and curled my fingers around his cock.  Tightly.

“Ah,” he sighed and rocked his hips into my touch.  His lashes lowered and I fisted him, pumping in time with his increasingly demanding thrusts.  I was still inside of him and he was rolling his hips against me and—and the base of my spine tingled.

I made a shocked noise as I felt him tighten around my cock.  Or was it the other way around?  Holy fuck.  Was I getting hard again?  Two fucking minutes after coming so hard I’d forgotten my own name?

I was.

Trowa moaned, moving against and over me with more enthusiasm now that I wasn’t on the verge of sliding out of him.  I pressed a hand to his ass, guiding us together in a slow, deep, endless roll of rocking hips, clenched bellies, and tensed thighs. 

I let myself be absorbed into the feel of him, savor the slide of our skin.  It was better than _any_ dream I might have had over the past twelve years.  Better than all of those undreamt wet dreams combined.  So much better.

“Yes, Duo,” he whispered.  “Just like this.”

I let my mind go and just looked into his eyes, kissed his lips, licked his skin.  His cockhead rubbed against my belly and chest, surging through my grasp with every breath as I palmed his hip and held him close.  My watch beeped.  I ignored it.  So did he.  We moved closer and deeper into each other until I thought we’d merge.  His blood and mine.  His flesh and mine.  Bone and heart and soul.

“I don’t even know you, Trowa,” I objected, sad for both of our sakes.

“Yes, you do, Duo.  You are my friend.  My only friend.”

I felt tears prick my eyes.  “Oh, baby.”

“You stopped it.  My burning shame.”  His voice deepened in a way I had no words to describe.  Not in tone, but in truth.  “Each and every burning shame I bore for being your friend, for defying the masters.”

My breath hitched.

“I wanted to keep you for myself.  In a safe place.  Through the ring of flowers.  But they tried to take you—call you under the dell.  A sacrifice.  I couldn’t let them have you.  I couldn’t.  But you’d eaten our food.  For that, you’ve been trapped here.”

He spoke as though every roll of his slender hips was freeing each word from the depths of his soul.  “I was trapped as well.  In this forest.  Banished from fey lands.  Alone.  Burning.  Agony.  Hoping you would never return, but wanting to see you just one more time.”

I ached.  My heart.  My soul.  My _everything._   “Jesus.  You—why—not say—?”

“I could not,” he admitted, lowering his chin and gazing into my eyes.  “Just myself alone – no power.  But with you, Duo—the echo of magic is in you.  The healing.  I feel it.  I can use it.  We can both be free.  Just don’t stop.”

“OK,” I breathed.  “Take what you need, Trowa.  I trust you.”

A visible shudder moved through him, stiffening his nipples even further and raising gooseflesh on his arms.  The fine hairs on my arms lifted as if charged with static electricity.  I wrapped my arms around him, opening myself to him, hoping that whatever power I possessed within me would be enough.

I focused on the feel of him, the sound of his breaths, the shade of green in his eyes.  I could love him, I realized.  I might be falling in love with him at this very moment.  It terrified me that he wouldn’t want me after this, but I didn’t fight that fear.  I gave in to it.  Let it fly.  Let myself fly with it hoping like hell he’d be there to catch me before I crashed.

“Ah, Duo.  Yes.  That’s it,” he encouraged me and I fell into him.  And as I fell, I felt a tug.  A pull.  A lifting.  Like hands were peeling back a layer of my skin.  There was no pain.  Only release.

And release I did.  I called out as I thrust up into him, riding the heat that scorched through every vein and artery from my body into his.

I slumped against him.  He clutched me close to his chest as I panted, panted, panted.

“Duo, here.  Please,” he whispered, one of his long fingers pressing against my lips.  I opened my mouth and it slid inside.  I tasted something woodsy, musky, _Trowa_ and realized what it was.  I grabbed for his hand to hold it in place as I sucked his finger clean of his come.

“Thank you, Duo,” he said, his lips moving against the crown of my head.

“Are you OK?” I checked.

“We will be.  Come.  We have to leave, Duo.”

“Now?” I whined.  I could barely breathe.

“Now,” he confirmed and began to rock himself gingerly to and fro until our bodies separated.  I didn’t want to look down and see what I was sure would be his blood and my spunk smeared all over us.  Trowa tugged up my boxers and jeans, fastening them deftly.  He braced himself on my shoulder as he wiggled into his tights.

“Come, Duo.  Now or never.”

I chose “now.”  I grabbed his extended hand and we stumbled toward the tree line.

Late afternoon found us in a tangle in the field beyond the border of the forest.  I’d given Trowa my jacket.  He’d insisted I put my T-shirt back on.  Then we wound our arms and legs around each other and just waited to die.  Or be born.  Or something.

My watch beeped.

I heard running footsteps.

“Jesus Christ, Duo!”  Solo.

I cradled Trowa closer.  There was no telling what Solo would think when he saw us.

“And who the fuck is this?”

Yup, there it was.  Ladies and gentlemen, Big Brother Solo was in the building.

“This is Trowa,” I rasped through a parched throat.  “And he saved my life, so lay off.”

“He—say what now.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to get his head outta his ass, clean out his ears, and listen, but just then my stomach growled.  Hell, it _roared._   I hissed.  “Fuck.  Did ya bring any granola bars or something with ya?”

A heartbeat of silence echoed.  And then I heard a laugh.  Solo’s laugh.  His hands were on my shoulders and he was just about mauling me with unrestrained glee.

“They’re in the car, asshole.  Up an’ at ‘em!”

I groaned.

Trowa shifted in my arms and I brushed his hair back from his face so I could see his eyes.  He looked easily as exhausted as I was, but he was relaxed, smiling softly even.  He moved to sit up, and winced.  I winced with him in sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, imagining how sore and raw he had to be from what we’d done.

“This is a pain that will heal,” he murmured quietly.  The wind puffed across the field and I hoped that Solo hadn’t heard us.

I tottered to my feet, holding out my hands to Trowa so he could brace himself on my arms.  I pulled and he stood, leaned against my shoulder.  His muscles quivered from exhaustion.  I insisted on sitting with him in the backseat of the car.

“Home, James,” I told Solo.

“Yessir, Master Bates,” he mocked me and I grinned.  Trowa was still leaning heavily on me and I kept my arms around him.  We arrived at the inn in Dumfries and I pulled Trowa into the shower with me.  Two birds, one stone an’ all.  The dried blood and spunk on our bellies and legs was carefully soaped away.  I nudged him to turn around and show me his back.  I soaped him up, washing him _everywhere,_ before I rinsed his skin of crusted blood.

“Oh, fuck, Trowa.”

“Again?” he retorted with a sexy smirk.

“Not for a good long while, you idiot.”  He was damn lucky that he wasn’t bleeding.  “No, baby,” I continued, my sharp tone softening.  “Your back.  The scarring is—”

Extensive.  The raised scars were stark, spanning from shoulder to shoulder.  An unmistakable pair of hand prints and a sketchy silhouette of my profile.  At least they weren’t bleeding, open wounds.  How they’d healed so fast I didn’t know, but I was thankful that he didn’t seem to be in any pain from them.

I tried again, “They’re—”

“I didn’t feel it, Duo.  For that, I thank you.”

“No, baby,” I said again, cradling his jaw and giving him a soft, slow kiss.  “Thank you.  For saving me.  Again.”

“My friend, Duo.  Of course I would.”

I paused and regarded him – regarded us.  Naked.  In a shower.  Together.  I’d had my soapy hands on his cock, balls, and the pucker of his ass.  “Um, when you say ‘friend’…?” I checked.

“Companion,” he quickly amended, his eyes flashing with heat and satisfaction.

Still not an overly descriptive term in the modern vernacular.  “OK, um, so a companion is…?”

He pulled me close against his chest and pressed a very not-brotherly kiss to my lips, my jaw, my neck.  “The one I choose for the remainder of days.”

I exhaled a soft, humorless laugh through my nose.  If I were completely honest, I’d have to call it more of a disbelieving giggle.  I’d never kissed anyone before him.  Never even dated or made whoopee and now I had a life partner.  Holy shit.  Um, wow?

“Uh… I’m gonna need a little time to get used to that,” I confessed.

“Time,” he told me, “is exactly what we have.”

He was right.  I proved it by sleeping for fourteen hours straight.  Like a rock.  I blinked open my eyes to the soft glow of dawn slipping through the curtains and stumbled for the bathroom to relieve my bladder.  When I emerged, I found Solo sitting at the room’s small table.  Trowa was perched on a cushioned armchair, dressed in my brother’s spare jeans, a cotton T-shirt, and a brand new fluffy fleece hoodie.  The cutest damn fey guy in the land.  For sure.

“You gonna live, li’l bro?” Solo asked.

“Yeah, moron, I think I will.”  My stomach growled.  “When’s breakfast?”

He chuckled and shook his head.  Leaning half out of his chair, he grabbed for a shopping bag that he’d stashed between Trowa’s armchair and the wall.  I walked over and placed my hands on Trowa’s shoulders.  “Are you OK?”

He nodded.  “Fine.”

I had so many questions, but they’d have to wait.  When Trowa finished picking through the snack offerings Solo had acquired, he ran his knuckles over my tangled, messy braid and headed for the bathroom.

The door closed and Solo sighed, drawing my attention back to him.

“What?” I demanded, already defensive.

“I shoulda figured it out sooner.”

_That your little brother has a thing for fairies?_

He frowned down at the napkin he was shredding.  “I remember waking up in the middle of the night – at the castle – and going to the window.  Seeing the old man chasing after you across the drawbridge.”

I blinked.  Of all the things I’d expected him to say, that had not been in the ballpark.  Not even slumped and pouting in the nosebleed section.

He sighed.  “You were sleepwalking, Duo.  After a solid week of dragging your ass back to bed at fucking midnight, he sent us back to Boston.”  Solo shook his head.  “And here you were just trying to get back to…”

 _Him._   Trowa.

Before Solo could give that a good think – before he started wondering what could possibly entice a little boy out of bed in the middle of the night and what kind of person would be doing the enticing, I cleared my throat.  “It wasn’t—I mean, Trowa hadn’t done anything to me or—”

“You were both little kids, Duo.  I know that.”

Something in his tone made me blurt, “You saw him, too.”

He nodded.  “Once.  This little tattooed kid watching your window from the forest like his whole damn world was on the other side of the glass.  I thought I imagined him.”  He rubbed his hands over his face.  “Jesus.  I really am a moron.  He’s been there the entire time?”

I shrugged.  I couldn’t really say.

“Look, whatever,” Solo said.  “You’re sleeping.  You’re eating.  I don’t care how it happened.”

I laughed.  Yeah, I could count on Solo to keep his priorities straight.

Even if I wasn’t.  Straight, that is.

We stayed in for the day.  Solo dug out a pack of cards he’d bought at some gift shop or other in town and we taught Trowa how to play Old Maid and Gin Rummy.  Solo went to the pub for takeout.  We turned on the evening news and Trowa’s eyes tracked every flicker and flash on the screen.  He slept in my bed with me, and that was fine.  That was the way we both wanted it to be.

I waited until Solo took his turn in the shower the next morning to ask Trowa about his scars, “Do they still burn?”

I looked up at him, laying my head against the arm he’d stretched out behind my shoulders.  He was tracing individual strands of my hair with the tips of his fingers.

He smiled, watching me doodle over the scar on his palm, which I was holding captive on my thigh.  “No.  They’re just scars now.”

I thought of the creatures that had hurt him.  The creatures that had wanted to hurt me, had kept me a prisoner in that dark wood.  “How’d you fix me?  Put me back together again?”

“The magic,” he began, “from when I healed your knees.  It was still there inside you.  Still healing you.  It’s been keeping you alive ever since.”

I tried to sort through that to find the logic, but quickly gave up.  With Trowa, I’d make more headway by admitting defeat.  “I don’t understand.”

“I gave you healing, and you gave me your friendship.  I felt it was a more than equal exchange, so the gift was yours to keep.”  His expression saddened.  “But you ate fey food, Duo.  That means you accepted fey hospitality.  There’s always a price to be paid in exchange.  Anyone who tries to cheat the fey perish.  Without the healing magic inside you, you would have died after you’d left the forest.”

I gaped at him.  “But… you offered that cake thing to me.”

“And I have regretted it ever since.”

I could see that he did.  I reached up to cup his cheek, rub my thumb over his scars.  Yes, he’d tried to trap me in some kind of magical realm, but he hadn’t wanted to harm me the way those demons had.  In the end, he’d helped me.  At great personal cost.  Both then and now.

He continued, “You were trapped on the threshold to my world.  With the aid of the magic inside you, I could help you draw that part of your spirit back to where it belonged.”

“How?”  Were there even words in the English language to explain this process?

Trowa drew his fingertips along my arm.  “Fornication.  The moment you achieved completion, did you feel how your spirit defied the limits of your flesh?  In that instant, the healing magic drew upon your spirit and made it whole again.”

I made a mental note to teach Trowa some euphemisms.  Fornication.  Completion.  Jesus fried a chicken.  Clearing my throat, I made myself ask, “Er, yeah.  The first time I, uh, yeah.  I felt… yes.  That.  But, um, why did you keep on…?”

“I need magic to survive,” he told me.  “The masters stripped me of it when I let you go, and I was bound to the forest.  In order to break free of their hold on me, I needed you to open yourself up to me, to share with me the magic within you, to make an unbroken circle.”

“And we did that?”

“Oh, yes.  You were inside me and I was inside you.”

The memory of his taste burst over my tongue.  I felt myself flush.  “Uh, we could have just—I mean, I didn’t have to, y’know, a second time for that to—Hold up!”

Trowa arched a brow at me.

I hissed, “We didn’t have to, literally, uh, _connect_ for that, did we?  We could’ve managed it without you, er…”

A wicked little grin curled his lips.  “Having you inside me?  That is true.”

My jaw dropped.  I gaped at the very satisfied look on his face as he ran a hand over my chest.

Seriously?  He’d just wanted me?  _Me?_

Right.  OK, then.  Moving along.  “So, what does this mean?  Do I still have magic in me somewhere?”

“Always,” he replied.

“And you?”

“Yes.”

“OK, so, can you… can you leave the country with me?  Get on an airplane and go across the ocean and be with me in America?  Are you gonna be OK with that?”

Trowa gave me a knowing look that made me feel warm and tingly all over.

“Really?” I somehow managed to say through my goofy grin.

“’Course he is.”

I just about fell off the bed at the sound of Solo’s voice.  Would have, too, if Trowa’s legs hadn’t been tangled with mine.  My brother was smirking in the bathroom doorway, toweling his hair dry.  “Gotta get him a passport first, though.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Yeah, I get that, dork.  But our flight’s in two days.”

He shrugged.  “We’ll reschedule.”

“Right.  What about—”

“I’ve got some money saved up.  A little.  We’ll sort it out, Duo.”

And you know what?

We did.

Just not the way you’d expect.

But that is another story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caerlaverock Castle is a real castle near Dumfries, Scotland and is one of at least two former land holdings of the Maxwells. Open to the public year-round, daily. Now you know where you’ll be taking your next vacation/holiday. (^_~)
> 
> Almost no research went into the magic/fey aspect of this fic. Just so you know. I was mostly inspired and guided by this Tumblr post: http://glitteringkitten.tumblr.com/post/141445306116
> 
> As with any one-shots I write, depending on reader response and my muses, further installments are a possibility. So, yes, your comments matter! YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!


	2. London Fey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting a passport shouldn't be this difficult, but it is. Especially when your boyfriend is a banished fey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Immediately follows "Duo and the Fey" -- like, literally. It picks up one or two hours later.
> 
> Music I wrote to: "Speeding Cars" by Imogen Heap

I gazed up at the painting in the second floor gallery of Caerlaverock Castle.  If I tilted my head and squinted, I could totally see it: my grandfather as a younger man.  A military man by the look of the uniform.  I admired the knife on his belt.  Its curved blade and ornamental scabbard was very _not_ military and I briefly wondered why I’d never seen it displayed on any of the walls with the other family mementos.  It ought to be.  It really, really ought to be.  The design on the hilt that the artist’s brushstrokes had hinted at looked fascinating.  I leaned closer, but the image didn’t sharpen.  Of course not.  Not with oil paintings.  It just got… paintier.

I sighed and looked back over the dozen other Maxwell family portraits.  The same knife was worn by someone – be it a man or woman – in every painting, but was still frustratingly vague in detail.

A pair of warm lips pressed a kiss to my neck and I shivered, turning toward a still bent head and the wicked little smile and glittering green eyes that were hiding behind his long bangs.

“Trowa,” I breathed, scanning the area for Solo.  My brother was around here somewhere.  And, OK, yeah, it was pretty obvious he’d already figured out that Trowa and I were, um, together, but I was so not ready for him to start teasing me about it.

“Show me where you slept,” Trowa murmured, lifting his chin and there was no way I could say “no” to the invitation tilting his brows.

I reached for his arm and slid my hand down the sleeve of his fleece to wrap my fingers around his wrist.  His hand twisted and he linked our fingers.  I pulled him toward a flight of spiral stairs that had been cordoned off with a small sign proclaiming “Private.”  It’d been years since I’d commandeered these halls, but I remembered the way.  On the third floor, I guided Trowa to the second-to-last room on the left.  My heart was pounding as I pushed open the door.

The room was still furnished just the way I remembered, but everything had been covered with sheets and a layer of dust.  A room for a ghost.  Trowa’s fingers brushed along my neck and I sucked in a breath.  “Always liked this room,” I told him, looking up.  “The ceiling’s really cool, huh?  All 3-D wood sculpture things and—”

A cool hand curled around the back of my neck and nudged my mouth toward another target.  “Kiss me,” Trowa murmured and, God help me, I couldn’t refuse.  But I could delay.  I leaned forward and gave him the most chaste of chaste kisses on his lips and grabbed his other hand.  If this was happening, then I wanted it to happen somewhere comfortable.  Don’t get me wrong – the log had been _hot._   But I knew how badly Trowa was going to destroy me and the anticipation was already making my knees weak.

I tugged him behind the sheet that covered the four-poster canopy bed and crawled onto the mattress.  He followed on all fours, rising up on his knees to claim a proper kiss.  A kiss that required hands to contain it with fingers curled into the hair at the nape of the neck.  A kiss that demanded surrender from lips which parted, giving way to hot tongues.  A kiss that pressed chests and hips together.  A kiss that slid arousals against each other, side by side, behind denim and zippers.

Solo would kill me if we got spunk on his favorite pair of jeans.

The thought was enough to startle me back to my senses, but not enough to stop what we’d started.

“Hmm,” Trowa breathed, pulling away and seeking out my earlobe with his lips.  I held my breath for it and – ah, fuck, _yes_ – the sharp, wet tug made my belly tingle with heat and my toes curl.

“Uhn,” he remarked and I wanted to spend all day hearing him make that sound, that look-what-I-found-I’m-oh-so-pleased sound.  But I knew we didn’t have much time.  And I might lose my nerve.

Gripping his shoulders, I eased him back until he was laid out on the mattress.  I kissed him deeply, chasing after his taste with a hunger that I still wasn’t used to feeling, and my hands went to the front of his jeans.  His fingers dug into my hair and I could just about hear him telling me to _hurry, Duo, hurry._

I eased the fly open and tugged the front of his silk leggings down until his cock joined the festivities.  “I’ve never sucked anyone off before,” I told him breathlessly and I heard his breath catch.  “So tell me if I do it wrong or something.”

“Huhn,” he grunted through slack, well-kissed lips.

“And I wanna swallow so don’t pull me off, OK?”

He closed his eyes on a groan.

I grinned, shimmied down, gripped his cock, and introduced it to my lips.  A kiss and he twitched.  A quick flick of my tongue to taste him and his hips lifted.  Fuck was I looking forward to this.

I watched him through my bangs as I licked longer, slower at the head of his cock and his entire body bowed with sensation.  Jesus, he was beautiful.  It made no sense whatsoever that he was mine and I was the one that he’d chosen _“for the remainder of days.”_

Logical or not, I chose this.  With him. 

I opened my mouth and his cockhead slid in.  I started pumping his shaft as I tried to figure out how to suck without my teeth getting in the way.  Trowa shifted toward me, angling his pelvis forward in a silent plea.  I pressed the palm of my other hand against the taut fabric of the jeans – my brother’s jeans, ew, _deal with it later!_ – and rubbed Trowa’s balls.  My first and middle fingers slid over the seat seam, teasingly close and yet so far from something else that might feel left out.

“Ah—ah—ah—!” he mewled and Jesus he was so fucking hot.  Having him in my mouth was seriously doing it for me.  I was leaking in my shorts.  My fist worked his length, up and down with a slight twist that slid soft skin over unforgiving hardness.

I dared to pull him in a little deeper until I felt him press along my tongue and up against the roof of my mouth.  I was drooling around him, unable to keep my throat working as he writhed and rolled.

“Duo,” he moaned softly and I groaned back a muffled “ _YES.”_

His knees bent and I balanced myself squarely, guessing what he was probably gonna do next.

And he did.  He thrust up into my mouth.  I held on, but I couldn’t do much else.  Licking, sucking, savoring – there was no time or space for any of that.  He was in control now and his hands fisted in my hair, pulling, hurting, and the sweet, sharp pain shot straight to my neglected cock.

 _Please don’t blow in my shorts,_ I begged it deliriously.

And then Trowa was panting my name over and over and the first musky dose hit my tongue.

 _Don’t choke,_ I prayed.

I held my breath as he came, came, came, came.  And then he slumped against the mattress.  His hands relaxed and I followed him down, trying to slurp as much of the mess down my throat as I could.  He started softening and I hurriedly took even more of him into my mouth and then sucked gently.

“Hnn, ah…” he complimented as I rolled him over my tongue and then gently pulled the slippery foreskin back to clean him off.  If I’d had a handkerchief, I would have used it to pat him dry.

 _Next time,_ I promised myself.

I reached for his right hand – the scarred one – and pulled it out of my completely destroyed braid to bring it to my lips.  I nuzzled his palm and the raised mark thereon.  I kissed his fingertips.  Turning his hand over, I nipped gently at his knuckles, the knuckles that he liked to trail over the weave of my hair.

His breathing calmed and he tugged at me in a wordless demand for a kiss.  I moved forward, crouching over him, and let him do whatever he liked with my mouth.  My mouth which tasted of him and, under that woodsy tang, me.  Tasted of us.

He sighed with pure contentment and my lips wanted to curve into a grin.  Yes, I was a good companion-slash-boyfriend.  I could do this.  I could be this for him.  My relief was surprisingly stronger than my arousal.

A door squealed open and I froze.  Trowa’s eyes opened at the sudden dearth of participation on my part.  He arched a brow at me in question as that door – somewhere in the distance, further down the hall – swung shut.  Footsteps approached.  Stopped.  A second door was opened.

I reached for Trowa’s clothes, tucking him back into the leggings and refastening his fly.

“Duo—” he protested.

“Nope,” I told him.  “Not letting anyone see us like this.”

“You are ashamed,” he accused.

I paused in the act of lunging off of him.  “What?  Of this?  No.  Never.”  That was true and I kissed him to prove it.  “But you’re mine an’ I’ve never been good at sharing.”

His smile was small and sudden, but charmed.  He petted my hair once and then let me haul him from the bed.  I’d just twitched the sheet back into place and turned us toward the nearest window to admire the view of the forest when the door opened.

“I’m afraid visitors aren’t allowed up here.”

I turned and grinned apologetically.  Rubbing the back of my neck, I bashfully told the staff, “Sorry.  It’s just… the view, y’know?”

She opened the door wider and stepped back, a clear invitation for us to get the hell out.  I took the hint and led the way.  The staff lady – Cathy, according to her name tag – wasn’t all that much older or taller than me, but her blue eyes were sharp.  I had an impression of auburn hair curling around her shoulders and the glint of a gold ring through her nose and then Trowa and I were scampering down the stairs back to the second floor.

Trowa leaped easily over the rope across the steps and reached back to help me navigate it.  Feet on the level floor, I turned toward the gallery and just about smacked into Solo.

“You get your ass caught, dumb-bro?” he asked, eying me from head to toe.

 _I will not blush._   “Sorta.  Didn’t get us kicked out, though.”  Wasn’t much, but it was the best I could offer.

He sighed.  “And what the hell happened to this?”  He gestured to my frazzled braid.  My Trowa’s-hands-had-just-been-fisting-in-it-on-the-throes-of-passion braid.

 _Still not gonna blush._   “I told Trowa he could fix it for me if it got messed up.  So he messed it up.”

“Jesus Christ, you two.”  He rolled his eyes.  I could tell he didn’t really believe me.  But I could also tell he didn’t really wanna know.

“I’d like to eat,” Trowa said suddenly.

“Oh, sure.  Sounds good,” Solo agreed.  But then, he was so unused to anyone other than himself being the one to suggest a meal that the response was probably from shock rather than a genuine desire to find food.  It was only a little after eleven o’clock in the morning.

I studied Trowa.  There was something off about him.  Something that made me think he wasn’t really hungry; he just wanted us to leave and he knew that Solo would mow down passing motorists in our rental car if he thought I might need sustenance.

“Li’l bro?  You good?” Solo checked.

“Yeah.  Sure.  Meat pie me, man.”

We headed for the exit and Trowa brought up the rear rather than matching my steps.  Before we went down the stairs to the first floor, I glanced back over his shoulder.

Cathy was standing in the middle of the gallery, still watching.

I shook off the chill seeping from the stone walls of the castle and let Trowa’s hand on my waist guide me out.

Rental car returned, we headed back to the pub where Solo and I had eaten after our arrival in Dumfries.  We had an hour and a half to kill before the next bus to London pulled out.  I ordered a meat pie.  Solo dittoed that.  Trowa quietly requested a green salad, no dressing, with a side of local bread, and a slice of almond pie.

“Are you a vegetarian?” I asked after the waitress – the same one who’d done the blush-and-twirl two days ago – headed off to report our orders to the kitchen.

Trowa wrinkled his nose.  “No.”

“Uh, so you want me to get an extra plate for you?  We can share my meat pie if ya want.”

“Hell no,” Solo butted in.  “You ordered it, you eat it.”  He looked at Trowa.  “We’ll get another if you want one.”

“No, thank you.  Cooked meat is…”  Again that look of disgust.

“Seriously?” Solo muttered flatly.

My brows arched.  “You OK with me eating it?” I checked, holding up a hand before Solo could defend a man’s right to eat whatever the fuck he wanted.

“Of course.”

“The smell’s not gonna bother you?”

“It’s fine,” he assured me.  Genuinely assured me.

“You’ll tell me if something bothers you, right?” I persisted, not just thinking of food.  I was also thinking of whatever had bothered him at Caerlaverock.

“Yes, I’ll tell you.  If you need to know, I will tell you.”

What a fucking fey answer.  Well.  I wasn’t going to get into it with him now, but this was grounds for a Discussion later.

“Turn around,” Trowa ordered after we’d boarded the bus and stowed our shit.  Well, my shit and Solo’s shit.  Trowa had, literally, nothing but the clothes on his back (roughly half of which were either mine or Solo’s).  Only his fleece hoodie and the canvas sneakers on his feet were new.

“Turn around?  Why?” I challenged.  My after-lunch coffee – and the fact that I had Questions for him – was making me a little edgy.

“Because you said I could _fix_ your braid for you if it _got messed up.”_

I smirked.  “Is that what I said?”

He poked me in the ribs and I wiggled around in my seat to face the aisle and Solo seated across it.  He’d put in his earbuds and was thumbing through the Line updates on his phone.  I felt Trowa gently tug the tie off of the end of my braid and start unraveling my hair.

“You got a brush?” I called back.

“Don’t need one.”

Something nudged my memory.  Something about fairies and humans waking up with flowers and shit braided into their hair.  “Hey, just a regular braid, Tro.  Nuthin’ fancy.”

“Just the way you like to wear it,” he promised and I relaxed.

We entered the outer limits of London long after dark.  So past dark it was only a couple more hours until day again according to my watch.  When the rhythm of the bus’s motions changed from highway to city, I opened my eyes and watched the lights drift by Tro’s window.  I stayed right where I was in the curve of Trowa’s arm, tucked beneath his tilted head.  I had no idea if he was awake or not, so I tapped out a snappy tune with my fingers against my own thigh.  When I got no reaction from him, I figured he was still sleeping.  So I let him sleep.

But there was a slight tug on the end of my Trowa-custom braid from across the aisle, so I knew Solo was up.

Trowa didn’t so much as twitch until the interior lights came on.  Twenty minutes to destination after nearly fourteen hours of monotony.  I finger-combed his bedhead as he blinked and yawned.

Fuck, he was cute.  I was so gone for the guy.

He rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs, and leaned back into his seat, giving me a smile that I had in no way earned.

Solo had made us reservations at a nearby chain hotel when he’d rescheduled our flights and booked a ticket for Trowa.  I had no idea how much all of this had cost, but it couldn’t have been cheap.  Solo had never said the price aloud, so I didn’t know how much of his savings we were gobbling up, but shit did I appreciate it.

“What time’s our appointment at Passport Services?” I checked quietly as we schlepped down the narrow, generic hall to our equally narrow, generic rooms.

“Shit, yeah,” Solo remembered.  “I’ll call down to the front desk and check how long it’ll take us to get there from here.  But, ten-thirty’s the appointment.”

“Got it.  Line me.”

“Will do.  ‘Night.”  With a wave to Trowa and a fist bump on my arm, he shouldered his way into his own room.  I flipped the keycard in my hand over with every other step as I led the way to mine and Trowa’s room.  Our room.  A room for just the two of us.

Here it was.

Card swipe.

Green light.

Open door.

Cue lights.

Door shut.

And then Trowa and I were alone.  For the next six or so hours.

I tried not to be too obvious about eyeballing the only bed in the room: an undoubtedly stiff-as-a-board but very double-sized bed.

“You tired?  Hungry?” I checked as I dumped my backpack and the bag of snacks we’d bought before leaving Dumfries into the only empty corner of the cramped room.  “Or you want a shower?”

Trowa’s hand slid under the edge of my T-shirt and one of his fingers hooked into the belt loop of my jeans.  “Shower,” he decided.

Shower it was, then.  For both of us.

Under the hot spray, he leaned back against the plastic liner and brought our interlaced hands up to either side of his head.  I pressed against him, stroking his mouth with my tongue, tickling his jaw with my lips, reddening his neck with sharp, sucking bites.  Whatever I did, however I touched him, he only wanted more.

“Duo,” he breathed, rolling his hips against mine and I rocked against his in reply.

Jesus, he was killing me.  I wanted him so badly, but I doubted we’d get very creative standing up in a cramped hotel shower of all places.  I very much wanted him on a bed.  A big bed.  With lots of nobody-else-around.

He lifted a foot and braced it against the edge of the tub, upsetting the flimsy shower curtain and sending water streaming to the cold tile floor.  I couldn’t have cared less about the puddles.  I was panting into his hot mouth as my hips fit against his, all of the good bits rubbing and bumping in the gush of hot water.

I wished I was taller, bigger, _stronger._   Maybe I could have done a cheesy porn maneuver and hooked my arms under both his legs, pinned him against the wall and—

_Whoa, Duo.  Slow the hell down.  Give the guy a break.  Only been three days since you, uh, y’know._

Yeah, but I could want it again, couldn’t I?  Want but not have.  His skin was still cool to the touch – even now it resisted the heat of the water – but inside he was an inferno.

“Ah, fuck, Trowa,” I groaned, licking the corner of his mouth.

“Yes.  Please.”  He dragged one of my hands down and pressed my fingers between his cheeks, against his pucker and holy fuck it went right to my cock.  I licked water droplets off of his slender neck and rubbed little circles against his muscles, dined on his soft, inarticulate sounds.

“Duo,” he managed to pant.  “Please…”

Carefully, I pressed against his entrance, not pushing up but pushing at an angle.  The tip of my finger slipped inside and JESUS FUCK HE WAS HOT.  “Inferno” didn’t even begin to describe the feel of him.  How had my dick not caught fire and turned to ash that day in the woods?

“Tell me,” I rasped, “if it feels OK.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes—” he chanted on a whisper, every half dozen approvals or so commanding me to move “deeper” or “curl up” and the third time I did—

“Well, look what I found,” I sang with a very pleased grin.  I rubbed against Mr. G-spot and Trowa braced his free hand on my shoulder, clenched my left hand in his right hard enough to separate bones, and shuddered so powerfully that I felt it encompass me in waves.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“I like,” he gasped, “your touch.  Any—where.  Uhn... but this—save me.  Ahh!”

“I could suck you off again,” I offered, leaning around to nip his ear.

He shook his head.  “I’ll fall.”

“Slower?  Harder?  What’dyou want, baby?”

He tilted his chin down and our eyes met.  “How you would move inside me.  That’s what I want.”

I groaned and obligingly changed the rhythm so that it was less about circles and more about rocking him toward me, pressing him closer, closer, closer.

“Ahh, yes,” he sighed, blessing my choice with a low moan.

I guided his other hand – still locked with mine – to my shoulder.  “Hold on, baby,” I instructed him and reached between us to rub my palm over our cockheads as I pushed against that spot inside him.  His head fell back, his spine arched, his cock swelled.

He was close.

But I came first. 

It blindsided me, turned my vision white and then black and then Trowa.  All Trowa.  He was all I could see.  His nails dug into my skin and his muscles clamped around me so tight that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the sensation, the possibility of feeling that force around my cock, the likelihood that I already had but had been unable to process it.  His release gushed out against my hand and I leaned my forehead against his shoulder.  His leg was trembling where it pressed against my hip.

“Push me out, baby,” I murmured, leery of hurting him.  I’d done a couple of quick Google searches on the bus while he’d leisurely finger-combed and braided my hair.

My hand slid free and I coached his upraised leg back to the bottom of the tub.  Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and just took a moment to, y’know, be with him.

But our hot water wasn’t gonna last forever, so eventually I had to take a step back. 

Trowa watched, slumped against the liner, as I reached for the bar of soap and started lathering.  “You OK?”

His lips quirked.  “You needn’t keep asking.”

“I ask because I want you to tell me what you’re feeling.”

He blinked slowly.  “Bliss.”

I grinned and leaned in for a soft kiss on his irresistible lips.  “I’ll take it.”

“Take me.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.  “Looking forward to it.”

His grin was wicked.

“In the meantime, you think you can gimme a hand with this?”  I passed him the soap.

His hand jerked.  He hissed through his teeth and the bar clattered to the bottom of the tub.

“What is it?”  Had I hurt him earlier and he was just now feeling it?  “Are you OK?” I asked, extending a hand.

He cringed back.  “Don't,” he begged in a voice that belonged to his six-year-old self and I froze, watching as he shrank away from the fallen soap dissolving at our feet and hastily rinsed his hands in the spray.  The skin between his scars was red and irritated.  I gaped at the tightness of his mouth, the squint of his eyes.  He _was_ in pain.

“What happened?” I needed to know.

He gritted out, “The soap.”

“Soap,” I repeated dumbly.  “Are you allergic or something?  It’s too strong?”

“Yes.”

It might be 3:30 in the morning, but I still had enough brain power to figure out that the hygiene products provided by a big city chain hotel would be cheap, chemical-based knock-offs hell bent on causing dry skin and rashes in the average Joe.

Trowa was nowhere near average in any respect.

Trowa was also going to be sleeping next to me in that double bed tonight and I hoped with every fiber of my being that our skin would be in glorious contact the whole time.

I looked down at the suds on my hands.

“OK,” I agreed, grabbing the bar of soap from where it was knocking against the drain, tossing it into the garbage, and rinsing off the unused lather.  “No soap.”

He looked at me for a long moment.  So long that I had to ask, “What?”  Did I reek?  I should use soap and sleep on the floor?  _What?_

“I am always surprised by your kindnesses.”

“Jesus, babe, don’t be.  If I were such hot stuff, I’d be out finding a 24-hour mega-mart with organic soap for my fey boyfriend, but – shit, I have no idea where to—”

He kissed me.  “No soap.  It’s fine.”  And then he kissed me some more.

“OK,” I agreed weakly.  Once I was capable of speech again.

We rinsed one more time and I shut off the water; it was starting to go lukewarm.

I reached for a towel and frowned at the stiff, starchy, cheap-and-harsh-detergent feel of it.  “I think we’re gonna strike out with this, too.”

A tentative swipe from his other hand over the threadbare terrycloth confirmed it.

“We’ll air dry,” I capitulated, already considering the bed I’d been hoping to lie down on.  The sheets had to be as bad as the towels.

I squeezed Trowa’s arm in reassurance and got out of the tub.   He watched from the doorway as I dripped across the thin, scratchy carpet and picked up the phone to dial the front desk.

“Hi, this the guy in 508 – just checked in?  Yeah, look, I was wondering if you’ve got any hypoallergenic soap or towels or sheets or, hell, anything?”

Luckily, he did.  I pulled on my jeans and a T-shirt that turned out to be the one Trowa had worn today.  The clothing stuck to my wet skin.  I gave Trowa a kiss as I passed him and went to the door.  “Be back in five, baby.”

I borrowed his sneakers – they were easier to slip on than my boots.

“I really appreciate it, man,” I said to the night clerk as he passed me a clear plastic bundle marked HYPOALLERGENIC.

He shrugged.  “No worries.  It’s not as rare as you’d think.”

I headed back upstairs and passed the new soap to Trowa.  “How’s this?”

He lathered his hands in the sink.  “Better,” he grudgingly admitted.

Right.  Better but still not great.  The towels went over well, though, and I toga-ed him up in the new sheet, earning a grin of approval.  I stripped and remade the bed faster than I’d ever done to my own back home.

Finally, at long damn last, we were at the sleeping-cuddled-together stage of things.

Trowa curled up around me, clinging in a way he hadn’t done at the hotel in Dumfries (which had clearly been a higher-quality establishment).

“Hey, are you OK?”

He nodded and pressed butterfly kisses to my shoulder until I drifted off.

I woke to the sound of my phone ringing.  Shit.  I’d forgotten to check Line last night for Solo’s text.

“This is your wake-up call, asshole.”

“Thanks, shithead.  See you downstairs in fifteen.”

Trowa pulled the sheet up over his head and I decided to give him a few minutes as I used the toilet, washed up, and brushed my teeth.  Then I crawled onto the bed and started rubbing my beard stubble over planes and curves through the fabric.

“Baby,” I crooned.

He groaned.

“Time to go.”

He curled up tighter.

“The first step in your journey to America starts now.”

A sigh this time.  I could honestly sympathize, but I was also excited about this.

I reminded him, “Going to America, with your companion—Duo—which is me~e...!”  I wiggled my ass with enough exuberance to shake the mattress and I grinned.

He tossed the sheet back and tried to glare at me.  He looked like he hadn’t slept more than an hour, but he was giving me that oh-so-special little smile of his.  Jesus.  Was it possible that I loved him this freakin’ much after only three days?

Maybe it _was_ possible because Solo’s little bomb didn’t blow nearly as big a crater as it should have.

“Here’s the deal,” my brother said as we waited for the tiny elevator to arrive on our floor.  “You two are engaged.”

“Say what?” I squeaked, nervous rather than horrified.

“You met when you were kids, reconnected online and have been chatting for two years.  Finally met up, fell even more madly in love, and now you wanna be together in the States ‘cuz that’s where you—”  He speared me with a look.  “—have a scholarship to Boston U.  Right?”  He gave me his evilest bug-eyed stare and either he was trying to impress upon me the simple fact that sticking as close to the truth as possible was our best bet or that I’d give up on school over his dead body.

Either way, message received.  Loud and clear.  “OK, I got it.  Jeez.”

“Engaged?” Trowa echoed uncertainly.

“To get married?” I prompted.  “Uh, like—”  What was the antiquated term?  “—betrothed to wed?”

Again that snobby little nose wrinkle.  “Hm.”

“Easiest explanation,” Solo informed him point-blank.  “You wanna be with my brother?  Then you damn well better play the game.”

Trowa stared back.  The elevator dinged.  The doors slid open but nobody moved.  I caught them before they closed and abandoned us here for another ten damn minutes.

Finally, my fey boyfriend nodded.  “Understood.”

Maybe he did.  Time would tell, I guess.

The Passport Services Office wasn’t far, but it still took nearly the whole allotted time to get there.  London traffic.  Definitely a must on your next visit.

I poked Solo in the shoulder to get him to slow our approach to the building.  We still had details to work out before there were, y’know, witnesses.  “Hey, you told ‘em Tro doesn’t have any ID, right?”

Solo shrugged.  “They told me to have you two come in anyway.  I, uh, hinted that you—”  He sent a glance at Trowa. “—were part of a kinda nomadic group and decided you wanted to leave your family, clan, whatever for a more stable lifestyle.”

Trowa looked at me, either for my approval or to get my feedback on it.  “What do you think?” I asked him instead.

“Makes sense,” he replied after thinking about it for the time it took for four taxis to cruise by.

Yeah, I didn’t think we’d be able to sell the fey angle to anybody.

But then again, maybe I was wrong.

“Trowa, Duo, please come in,” the young woman who’d greeted us in the lobby said.  I tensed as the door to the small, non-descript office closed behind us.  Everything looked boringly normal – just another government institution – but something about it was making my skin crawl.  I glanced at our case worker.

She smiled, her icy blue eyes dancing with a light that was even more wicked than Trowa’s.  She leaned toward me, looking for all the world like she was about to kiss me on the lips.  I jerked back and then Trowa was between us.  In the next instant, he’d pushed me behind him and had her pinned against the nearest wall.

“Perish the thought,” he growled.  _Growled._

She smiled.  “Just checking, Trowa formerly of the Nithlyn Dell.  It’s my job to confirm these things.”

Trowa released her grudgingly, keeping himself between her overenthusiastic lips and me, his very committed and monogamous companion.

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the pair of chairs angled toward the desk.

Eyes narrowed, Trowa sat.  I followed his lead, narrowed eyes and all.  She – Dorothy Cata-something, she’d said her name was – leaned irreverently back on the desk across from Trowa.

“Do you know how this works?” she inquired.  “No?  It’s a fairly straight-forward interview with one pre-requisite.”  She turned her toothy smile in my direction.  “Kiss him and we can get started.”

“What the hell!”  I looked from her to Trowa.  I’d never seen him furious before, but he was.  From his narrowed eyes and clenched jaw to the fingers that curled around the arms of his chair.  The molded plastic in his grasp creaked.

Holy shit.

“What the hell does kissing have to do with anything?” I demanded.

Her smile turned positively evil.  “He doesn’t know?”

Trowa said nothing to her.  Instead, he turned to me and spoke through his teeth, “A kiss is—”

As he obviously didn’t want to tell me this here and now, I help up a hand.  “No, never mind.  Tell me later.  Do we have to do this?”

He nodded once.

I leaned toward him, but then stopped and glared at our audience.  “Can you at least turn around or something?”

“Not much of an exhibitionist, are you?  How dull.  But no.  I have to see it.”  She flicked a hand at us.  “Proceed.”

Trusting Trowa to explain this bullshit to me later, I shifted my attention from her to him.  As I did, I felt my gaze soften.  I reached out and touched his chin and, just like that, everything else faded back until it was only the two of us.  Nothing else and no one else.  His fury vanished and his entire being reached toward me as I leaned across the space between our chairs.  He closed the remaining distance between us and our lips touched gently.  It could have been a picture-perfect “I do” moment.

We leaned back.  I dropped my hand and, instantly, Trowa’s body was in lockdown.  He glared at Dorothy.

“Acceptable, but I’ve seen better.”  She reached back for a paper on the desk and handed it to me.  “Ask Trowa these, beginning with number one.”

“Wh—?” I started to argue but Trowa shook his head.  I sighed.  OK, fine.  We’d do it the psycho’s way.  I cleared my throat and looked at the first question—

—and just about swallowed my own tongue.  “You want me to ask him _this?”_

“Absolutely,” she replied, eyebrows arched.

“You have no right to—”

“Duo,” Trowa softly objected and I bit my tongue.  “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t, but… fuck it.  Trowa needed a passport and this appeared to be our only way to get it.  I forced myself to spit out the words: “List by name, and if the name is unknown, indicate with consecutive numbers beginning with 1, all of the humans with whom you have fornicated.”

That fucking word.  I was really starting to hate it.

Trowa drew a deep breath.

I didn’t want to hear this.

“Duo Maxwell,” he replied.  One name and no more.

“Next point, please,” Dorothy directed.

“Provide the name of your companion.”

“Duo Maxwell.”

“Have you made a formal declaration?”

“No.”

“If not, give all reasons.”

“I am banished from fey lands.”

I swallowed, belatedly wondering if Trowa was considered a fugitive and if we’d have to make a run for it.

Dorothy didn’t so much as blink.  “Carry on.”

Unhappily, I did.  “What tasks have you been assigned by the masters?”

Here, Trowa visibly hesitated.  He looked into my eyes and admitted, “Procurement of sacrifices.”

 _Oh, God.  No._   I bit back all the whatever-the-fuck that just _exploded_ in my belly.  “Are you willing to use these skills as payment for services rendered?”

“No.”

“Provide your permanent residence in the event of your application being approved.”

“With my companion.  Boston?” he checked.

I nodded.  “Boston, Massachusetts, USA.”  I shoved the paper in her direction.  We’d covered all the points listed.

She didn’t take it.  Instead, she held out a pen.  “Thank you, Duo.  Please leave your contact information.  Someone will be in touch with instructions.”

“Instructions?” I echoed.

“Yes.  This is Passport Services.  In order for us to issue a passport, we require identification and authorization of British citizenship.  You’ll be contacted shortly regarding those arrangements.”

I glanced at Trowa.  He nodded.  I scribbled and thrust the paper in Dorothy’s general direction.

“Best of luck, sirs,” she wished us, rising to open the door and see us out of the office.  “I hope I’ll be seeing you both again very soon.”

“Hope” wasn’t the word I would have used, personally.

“Well?” Solo demanded when we made it back to the lobby.  “How’d it go?”

“To be continued,” I gritted out and kept right on marching toward the elevator.

“Dude,” Solo appealed to Trowa.  “Clue me in.”

I could feel Trowa watching me intently, but I didn’t turn around.  I punched the button with my fist.  The sound was loud enough for the thud to bounce off the walls.  The elevator arrived.  I didn’t hold it.

Solo and Trowa leaped in and we rode in silence.  Trowa was standing a little behind me.  I felt a cautious tug on the hem of my jean jacket.  I kept my shaking hands in my pockets.

“Look,” my brother said as we reached the pavement outside and were faced with procuring transportation, “if you guys need to duke it out or whatever, we should head back to the hotel.”

I bit my lip and looked up at the sky.  The sunlight poked through the heavy clouds and my eyes watered.  “Tro needs some new clothes.  Let’s take care of that now,” I suggested mildly.

“Sure,” Solo agreed, pulling out his cell phone to look up some reasonable options in the area.  He wandered half a block down, giving us the illusion of privacy.  I held my ground as Trowa approached.

“What should I say first?” he asked.

“Procurement of sacrifices?” I prompted through my teeth.

He sighed.  “I didn’t lead them, but I couldn’t stop them from following the will o’ the wisps.”

“You stopped me.”

“Should I have bled for all of them?”

I shoved a hand in my hair.  Damn it.  He had a point.  It was unfair of me to expect Superman-esque altruism from him.  Hell, from anyone, fey or human.  This – this whole thing – was so monumentally unfair.

I took a deep breath and asked the most terrifying question of all, “How—how do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

“Because I cannot lie to you, Duo.”

Fucking hell.  I shook my head.  “I hate this shit.  I am as open with you as I can be and you give me these half-assed answers that I can’t understand.”

He shifted closer.  “I kissed you.  Years ago.  A fey’s kiss.  It means I cannot lie to you.  I cannot harm you.  It means I crave your touch.  I am loyal to you and only you.”

I looked him in the eye.  Swallowed.  “That’s why Dorothy wanted to see us kiss and why she wanted me to ask you those questions.”  In Trowa’s case, I was the fey version of a lie detector.

“Yes.”

 _How many people, Tro?  How many sacrifices happened under your watch?_   The question was right there, balanced on the tip of my tongue and so close to tumbling out, but I couldn’t.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know or wouldn’t be able to handle it.  I didn’t ask because I couldn’t put Trowa through the agony of answering, especially when I had no context for the choices he’d been forced to make.

With a long, tired sigh, I tugged my hands out of my pockets and reached for his even as they lifted in my direction.  I clutched his icy fingers, rubbing my thumbs over his knuckles.

Trowa’s eyes closed.  His face relaxed.

“You really feel… when I touch you?”

“Bliss, yes,” he admitted.

“Because of a kiss?”

He opened his eyes.  “One kiss, yes.”

I reached up and nudged his bangs out of the way so I could touch my fingertips to his scar.  “So, how come you stopped Dorothy?  If she’s fey, then we could have gotten some answers outta her, eh?”

“She is fey, yes,” he agreed, “but had she kissed you, she’d be here now, clinging to you, and I would have to break her neck.”

My eyes widened.

He elaborated, “I don’t share well.”

My lips twitched and I snorted out a laugh.  Trowa shared a smile with me even though I was 99% sure that he’d been dead serious.

“Besides which,” he continued, “she’s merely the marketeer.”

“Sorry?”

He gave me a sidelong look as his attention focused on the building we’d just left.  “She’s making the calls now, selling the rights to my request.”

“Hold up, people are gonna be in a bidding war over the chance to make you a birth certificate an’ shit?”

“Yes, and they will expect me to repay them.  Favor for favor.”  He looked at me.  “Thank you for coming with me.”

“How did that help anything?” I wanted to know.

He confided, “There are many kinds of favors, but there are rules.  Some things cannot be asked of a fey who has a companion.  I am relieved to have those possibilities… how do you say?  _…off the table.”_

My next question was ready to dive-bomb into the conversation except it was turning into more of an interrogation, wasn’t it?  I asked instead, “You really have to tell me the truth when I ask you something?”

“The truth or some measure of it, yes.”

“That’s not fair.”

He said nothing for a long moment.  Simply looked at me.  “I knew what a kiss would mean.  Were I to have that moment back to do again, I would change nothing.”

I bit my lip.  I wanted to kiss him.  I wanted to cry for him.  I wanted to tear those demons apart with my bare fucking hands – procurement of sacrifices. 

I still had so many questions, but they would have to happen later.  Solo glanced in my direction and our eyes met.  He gave me a look – _Are you done with being a shithead yet?_ – and I nodded.  He sauntered over and waved his phone screen at us.

“Good news.  Found a UNIQLO.  Let’s rock it.”

The shop wasn’t very busy, this being lunchtime on a Thursday.  I grabbed a basket and waved Trowa ahead of me toward the men’s section.  “Socks, bingo.  Let’s get ya four pairs to start with.  What do you like?”  I started scanning the options, but turned at the sound of Trowa’s sigh.  He was gazing across the aisle at the underwear.  “What?” I asked.

“No silk.”

“Uh, no.  Not in this store.”

He turned to head back the way we’d come.  I ignored the fact that Solo was browsing through the T-shirts while keeping me in his line of sight, still looking out for me.  Reaching out, I hooked Trowa’s elbow.  “Whoa, whoa.  Hold up.  Where ya goin’?”

“Elsewhere.  For silk clothing.”

My throat locked.  I rasped, “We can’t.”

Trowa frowned.  “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have enough money.”

He tilted his head to the side.  “Money?”

Jesus fried a chicken.  How could he not know what money was?  I blew out a long breath.  What had he said about methods of payment in fey lands?  Oh, yeah—  “You said—” I glanced around, but the aisle was still empty except for us. “—that fey use favors as payment?”

“Yes?” he prompted.

I tugged my wallet out of my back pocket and pulled out a 5-pound bill.  “This is what our favors look like.  With one of these, I can get you, say, this pair of undies and I still have money left for socks, jeans, whatever.  But silk—”  I shook my head.  “I don’t have enough money for silk.  It’s a lot more expensive.”

He stared at the contents of my wallet.  I had counted it earlier, so I knew exactly how much was in there.  A meager 167 pounds.  I’d figured on spending almost all of it here on his new clothes.  But what if he _needed_ silk?  What if manmade fibers and even cotton were too harsh for his skin?  Jesus fuck.  I was shit at this.  I was a terrible companion-slash-boyfriend.  He needed me and I couldn’t take care of him and—

Trowa’s hands settled on my shoulders.  “Duo, what is it?”

“You know I—I wanna buy you everything you need.  I want to _so bad.”_   I drew a shuddering breath.  My eyes felt hot.  Steamy and dewy.

“Shh,” he breathed, pulling me closer and I lowered my head to his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry—”

“Duo, shh.  It’s all right.”

It wasn’t.  And it got even worse.

“Hey, what the hell di’you do to my brother?”

“Go away, Solo,” I groaned.

“Is Trowa being an asshole because I will—”

“Stop rolling up your fucking sleeves, jerkwad,” I ordered.  “I’m the asshole.”

There was a beat of silence.  “Oh.  Doesn’t look that way to me.”

“Piss off.”

He did, after at least one eye-roll and a rude gesture, I’d bet.  Right back to the T-shirt section and his silent vigil.

I took a cleansing breath – filling my being with Trowa’s scent – and leaned back.

“Are you all right?” he checked and I had to laugh.

“Oh yeah.  Everyone cries in the men’s underwear section.  It’s all good.”

He gave me a smile and then reached past me to select four pairs of plain, cotton socks.

“But—” I started to protest.

He cut me off with a look.  “I don’t _need_ silk.”

The relief was almost painful.

He held up the socks.  “Do you have enough money for these?”

I nodded.  They plopped into the basket.  Trowa turned around and picked out four pairs of boxers.  100% cotton.  I stared at them as they landed on top of the socks.  “I’ll get better at this.  Someday, Tro.”

“Duo.  You’re perfect.”

I looked up.  Our eyes met.  He was telling the truth.  Not because I’d asked him for it, either.  He was just giving it to me.  And I knew he believed it because he wasn’t touching me, wasn’t letting himself drown in the endorphins or whatever that made him feel that mysterious bliss whenever we touched.  He really, really thought I wasn’t a complete fuckup.

I didn’t really know what to say to that.  “D’you want jeans or slacks?”

Four pairs of socks, four pairs of boxers, three undershirts, two long-sleeved T-shirts, a button-up dress shirt, and two pairs of chinos.  Maybe I still had enough money to pay the Passport Services fee.  If that actually happened.  I was starting to wonder how hard it would be to convince someone at Boston U to transfer my scholarship to the British Isles.

We were in the middle of checking out when my phone rang.  I handed my wallet over to Trowa and dug it out of my jacket pocket.  The screen showed only “unregistered number.”

“Yeah?” I answered.

A man’s voice said, “I would like to speak with Trowa.”

“Who is this?”

“A friend who is calling to offer assistance.”

My throat went dry.  Holy shit that was fast.  “Hold on.”

I passed the phone to Trowa, who had been watching me closely, “It’s for you.”

He collected my wrist and pulled my entire hand, phone included, to his ear.  “Yes?”

As Trowa listened to whatever the guy was saying, I plucked my wallet from Trowa’s grasp.  Solo came over and held out a hand for it.  The cashier gave us a look, but I just grinned and tried to look American.  It explained so much in this country.  Most countries, probably.

“I understand,” Trowa said and leaned back.

I checked to make sure the call had disconnected, but then my phone buzzed with an incoming message.  An address and a time.  Thirty minutes from now.

“What do you think?” I asked him, concerned by the hard expression on his face.  “Do you wanna do this?  Maybe we can find another way…”

He shook his head.  “No.  There is no other way.  That I am aware of.”

But I could tell that he really, really didn’t like it.

When the taxi dropped us off in front of an aged commercial building with crumbling bricks and a rusty fire escape, I decided that I didn’t like it, either.

But I showed Trowa how to use the intercom and we were buzzed inside.  Solo took one look at the rickety elevator and, heaving the crinkly UNIQLO bag over his shoulder, said, “Nope.  We’re gettin’ some exercise.”

We took the stairs up to the fifth floor and knocked on the door precisely on time.

“Enter!”

With a collective deep breath, we did.

“Greetings,” a man – or a male fey – said.  “I am called Doktor S.  Come in.”

The door rattled shut behind us.  Trowa and I crossed the dingy, poorly lit room to stand opposite Doktor S on the other side of a plain Formica table.  Solo remained beside the door.

“I heard that you might be in need of assistance.”  He leaned forward and slid a manila envelope across the bare tabletop.

Trowa looked from the supposed documents to their provider.  “What are the terms?” he asked while I was busy staring at the fake nose affixed to the guy’s face.  A prosthetic nose.

“After you arrive in Boston, you will be contacted by an individual named Howard.  You will tell him that the Organza Debt is paid in full.  He will provide you with instructions thereafter.”

There were so many things about this I did not like.  At all.

Trowa didn’t reach for the documents.  “When do I incur this debt?”

“When your passport is issued.”

“My passport, based on the documents you are providing at this moment, contained in this envelope?”

“Yes.”

Trowa nodded and reached for the papers.  Opened the envelope.  Scanned the documents.  I glanced over his shoulder and read the name: Triton Bloom.  He said flatly, “We will consider it.”

“A little advice – do so quickly.”  Doktor S turned his pale eyes in my direction.  “You don’t know how lucky you are.  He’s quite the dish.”

OK, first Dorothy and now this asswipe?  Enough was e-fucking-nough.  “Don’t,” I barked, “talk about him like he’s some kind of fucking eye candy.”

Doktor S’s lips quirked.  “I wasn’t.”

He wasn’t?  Wasn’t talking about Trowa?  So that meant he’d been talking about… oh.

Still!

“Luck,” snarled Trowa, “had nothing to do with it.  He was _chosen.”_

Doktor S seemed to find this greatly amusing.  I was just plain confused.  Why would Trowa get offended over the part about being lucky?  Jesus, send me a fucking roadmap, here.

“I look forward to the conclusion of our business, Trowa from the Nithlyn Dell, Duo Maxwell.”

Well, that was clearly a dismissal.  I was more than happy to oblige.  Solo opened the door and we clamored down the stairs, through the unlit hall, and outside.  I sucked in a breath of fresh air to clear my head of all the what-the-fuck, but nothing got settled or sorted.

“Just clarify one thing for me,” I begged.  Pointing to the envelope in Trowa’s grasp, I asked, “If we don’t use this stuff, do we still owe that shitbag?”

“No,” Trowa assured me, tucking the envelope inside his fleece.  “The documents are freely given.  The bargain rests upon the use of them.”

“I wouldn’t,” a stranger said.

All three of us spun around and stared at the guy standing at the entrance of the building’s narrow service alley.  He was Asian – Chinese, maybe? – and looked about as happy to see us as he would be to see cockroaches swimming in his ramen noodles.

He repeated, “I wouldn’t use them if I were you.”

“And just who the hell are you?” I demanded, taking a step in front of Trowa.

A single black eyebrow lifted with condescension.  Turning to my brother, he said flatly, “This is your fault.  You’ve told him nothing and now both of you are at the mercy of some juvenile fey that your ignorant brother couldn’t resist fucking.”

Red blossomed in front of me.  The world was made bloody with it.

But it wasn’t my arm that slammed our unnamed advice-giver up against the wall of the building.  It was Solo’s.

“You still haven’t learned how to make friends, have you, Chang?”

Chang glared.

I gaped.

Trowa’s hand wiggled around my elbow, his fingers clamping tightly in the denim of my jacket sleeve.

“Doktor S will have you watched until the moment you board your flight, provided that his people can survive long enough,” Chang said flatly.  “And if they can’t…”

Solo’s jaw clenched.

Chang added, “It’s only a matter of time before the dells come for you.”

My brother didn’t deny this.  In fact, it kinda looked like he even knew what this whacko was talking about.

“Maxwell, you idiot.”  I could almost hear a fondness in Chang’s voice under all his irritation.

Solo lowered his arm.  “Yeah.  That’s an established fact.”

“A clue, please,” I interjected.  “Cash or credit, I’m ready to place my order now.”

Chang replied, “Caerlaverock Maxwells are one of the hottest commodities among the fey.”  He glared at Trowa, who visibly bristled and angled himself between us… like he honestly expected Chang to reach out and yank me from his grasp.

“Hey,” Solo told Chang, “he’s with us.  Deal with it.”

“I intend to,” he snootily replied.  “The Tube is neutral ground.  If you’re willing to listen to reason, then follow me.”

Chang spun on his heel and headed for the busy main street and the subway entrance on the next corner.  I looked at Solo.  “You know?  About the fey?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “Didn’t believe it until I saw you and Trowa together outside the forest, but yeah.  I know.  So does Wufei.  And he’s probably our best source of information on what we’re up against right now.”

“Are you serious?  This asshat?”

Solo clearly wanted to say more – and, hell, I wanted him to say more – but standing out here in the open was just plain dumb.  He gestured for me and Trowa to precede him.  “C’mon, guys.  Let’s take a ride.”

I transferred Trowa’s sharp grip from my bicep to my hand.  His fingers were so hard and cold they felt more like claws.  I kind of hoped they were.  It’d be all that much harder to break our grasp.

The subway was churning with people - shoppers, students, just about anyone not in a suit.  It wasn’t five o’clock yet so this was the drawn tide preceding the rush hour tsunami.  We paid the fare and followed Chang to a track.  I looked from Solo to Chang to Trowa and decided I was tired of being left out of the loop.

I tugged on Trowa’s sleeve and he accommodatingly tilted his ear toward my lips.  “Doctor S was fey, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

I really wanted to know more, but I didn’t want to force him to tell me.  I guess he must have seen it in my face or something because he continued, “Doktor S is a traitor to his master.  A refugee from his dell.”

I didn’t have to ask how he knew this; Trowa volunteered, “His nose.  He was once yoked by one of the masters.  It is done with a gold ring—” He gestured to his own nose, miming a piercing.  “—and it allows a master to see what the yoked fey sees, hear what the fey hears.  The only way to be free of a master’s control is if the master removes the ring, or the fey removes his nose.”

“Or her nose,” I added, thinking of the staff lady at Caerlaverock.  Holy shit.  “Tro, at the castle yesterday, was she—?”

“Yes,” he said and that was all I needed him to say.  I had been right to suspect that Trowa’s request for an early lunch had been based on something other than hunger pains.  He’d noticed that we were being watched.

“What do they want from us?”

He glanced up and over at Chang.  Chang was watching us right back.  Maybe even reading our lips.

“I thought they wanted you for a sacrifice and me… to make an example of.  But now, I do not know.”

If Trowa’s punishment for helping me escape twelve years ago had been skin-splitting lashings, unending burning shame, and magical banishment, then I didn’t even wanna think about what “being made an example of” would mean.  Jesus.

I tightened my stranglehold on his hand.  He didn’t complain.

In the distance, I could hear a train rushing toward us.  Solo slung the UNIQLO bag over his shoulder and said something to Chang, who gave him a sharp look.  Lights appeared out of the end of the tunnel and I wondered if that’s what the three of us – Solo, Trowa, and I – were.  Three little lights in a darkness that only allowed for two possible destinations: there or here.  The real question was which was worse.

The train whooshed up to the platform.  Screeched to a stop.  The doors sighed open.

Where were we going?

It was time for us to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Almost) no research was done, but much (MUCH) fun fic writing was had. If you had fun reading, please let me know. I need to know. NEED. TO. KNOW.


	3. Warriors of Chinatown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle lines are drawn and the side you’re on is more a matter of who you happen to be standing next to when the shit hits the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music I wrote to: “Swallow” by Emilie Autumn
> 
> Notes: For those of you who are partial to the way I write smut… you may need to pack an extra pair of undies for this chapter. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

The train sped through the subway tunnel – a bullet made of fluorescent light instead of lead and I wondered which was stronger, the light of truth or brute force?

“OK, Chang.  Neutral territory.  Let’s hear what you got,” Solo said, angling his body so that the four of us formed a nice, chummy circle beside a group of sugared-up teenagers.

Jesus.  I was a teenager.  I felt so fucking old.

My brother asked, “Why are the dells after us?”

Chang narrowed his eyes.  “You know why.”

“I don’t,” I readily admitted.

Grudgingly, he explained, “There are very few artifacts in existence that the fey desire.  One – arguably the most powerful – is rumored to have been guarded by the last laird of Caerlaverock Castle.  Your grandfather.”

“Thanks, yeah.  Castle, laird.  I made that leap a while ago.”  The rest was news, though.  I was dying to ask Solo what he knew, how he knew it, and when he’d found out about it.  Also: artifact – what?  I bit my tongue.

My brother wanted to know, “Is this going to follow us back to the States?”

“What do you think?  They know who you are.  They probably already know your respective birthdates, blood types, and most recent bowel movements.”

“How do we prove we don’t know anything about this artifact?” Solo asked and my throat felt as tight as his voice.

Chang sneered.  “You die under torture without revealing its location.”

“You’re a fucking comfort.”

Chang’s lips quirked.  His eyes flashed.  An epic comeback was about to make an appearance.

“So we fight,” I butted in.  “That’s what you’re telling us, right?”  If we couldn’t go home and couldn’t convince them we didn’t have their magic fucking slippers or whatever the hell the artifact was, then what options did we have left?  We had nothing to bribe them with, nothing that could rival what they were seeking.  The only option left was to fight.

“And just what do you know about fighting?” Chang sneered.

I knew I was _thiiis_ close to slugging him.

“Keep this shit up and you’ll find out,” Solo replied for the both of us.  Or all three of us?  Yes, all three of us, I decided.  Trowa was a fighter.  The way he’d handled Dorothy and Doktor S had shown me brief glimpses of another side of him.  Someone who wouldn’t kowtow.  Someone who had freakin’ defied the masters after twelve years of pain and suffering.  Someone who was ready to fight back.

The train slowed as we approached the next stop.  A few people got off.  A lot of people got on.  Trowa claimed two overhead hand grips which placed him directly behind me, effectively covering my back.  I caught Solo noticing.  He gave Trowa a nod of acknowledgement as the train started moving again.

I let them have their little bro-moment, but that did not mean I was the damsel, here.  Years of sleep deprivation, under-eating, and general exhaustion might have made me shorter and thinner than them, but I’d catch up eventually.

“Keep this nonsense up,” Chang countered Solo’s threat, “and you’ll find out why the fey are not and will never be your friend.”

“If you have something to say to me,” Trowa spoke from over my shoulder, “say it to my face, human.  I’m not invisible.”

Yee-aah.  That was my baby.

“What would be the point, creature?  Every breath you take is a lie.”

“Chang, give us some options,” Solo hissed, “or I swear to God I will kick your skinny ass off this train at the next stop.”

“You are not prepared for the enemy that is coming for you.  I formally extend the hospitality of my clan.  Our resources are at your disposal.”

“That’s… quite the offer,” Solo replied, eyes narrowed in thought.  “What does the clan ask for in return?”

“A year and a day.  Possession of the artifact for a year and a day.”

“Even if I had it, the answer would be ‘no.’”

Chang scowled.  “Vengeance is ours by right, Maxwell.”

“I.  Don’t.  Have it.  Chang.”

“Fine.” He nodded toward Trowa.  “Give us the fey.”

I snarled, “Go fuck yourself on a lamppost.”

“Please,” Trowa added in a tone that was almost a growl.

Chang ignored us, his eyes fixed on my brother’s face.  I’d never seen Solo look so stern, like he’d been carved from granite.  “Absolutely not.”

“Very well.  Yourself, then.  Solo Maxwell, you will serve the clan for a year and a day.  If you swear to this, we will offer you unrestricted access to our resources for that duration.”

The train started slowing again, rolling into the next stop.  I rocked on the balls of my feet as we halted.  Passengers milled about.

Solo drew in a breath.  A deep breath.  Whatever kind of service Chang was demanding was something Solo looked like he was familiar with.  It also looked like he was on the verge of agreeing to it.

Before I could object, Trowa stiffened and hissed.  Flinched.  Wrapped an arm around my chest and curled himself bodily around me, but I managed to twist around in time to see a guy in a black hoodie quickly duck out of the closing car doors.  I glanced down and gaped at the dark green stain spreading out from Trowa’s side.

_No._

I grabbed for him as he doubled over, sliding my hand under his clothes to press my bare fingers over the wound.  I didn’t give a shit about germs or whatever – all I could think was that maybe, just maybe, the bliss he felt when we touched would push the pain back long enough for me and Solo to get him someplace safe.

“Neutral territory my ass!  How about this, Chang,” I hissed as I swung Trowa into a seat and slid in beside him.  “Either you get us the hell outta here and to a safe place, or we die on this fucking train.”

His dark eyes absorbed the sight of me with my hand under Trowa’s shirt and fleece, the way he was mewling into my neck and I was petting his hair, all the while glaring at Chang as I whispered soft nonsense: “I’ve got you, baby.  I’m here.  Just hold on.  Hold on.”

After a long moment, I heard him say one word: “Accepted.”

Chang pulled out his cell phone and made a call.  Solo placed himself between Trowa and the nearest passengers.  There was so much I wanted to know, to ask, to understand, and I was tempted to dive into my ocean of questions because I was fucking losing my mind here with Trowa’s blood seeping between my cramping fingers, but I didn’t.  Trowa needed me and I was just gonna have suck it up and suffer with him.

“Yeah, just like that, Tro,” I murmured as his fingers dug beneath my layers to curl tightly around the waistband of my jeans, his cold knuckles pressing against my skin.  “You hold on to me.  You’ve got me.  I’m right here.”

The ride to the next station was the longest of my life.  Trowa remained slumped against me until the station was announced and then Solo knelt down and pulled Trowa’s arm over his shoulders.  We stood together, supporting him between us.  I clutched at Trowa’s skin, pressed and pinched to stop the bleeding, and felt him brush his lips against my neck, uncaring of who saw.  Which was just about everyone in the damn car.

They probably assumed he was drunk and hitting on me.

Well, fine.  Whatever.  I was just hoping the attacker didn’t have any friends waiting for us.

He didn’t.  The welcoming committee belonged to Chang.  All ten of them.  Ten badass Chinese.  Men and women who looked ready to scale Big Ben and rip the hands right off its face.

“Here we go, onto the platform.  Straight ahead.  Move your feet, babe.  We can do this.”  I kept on nattering and narrating our progress and surroundings so that Trowa could focus on moving his feet.  Shit, he was heavy.

The stairs were torture.  Luckily, Solo’d had recent practice hauling someone’s ass around.  Christ, four days ago, he’d been dragging me into that fucking forest and I’d been less than three hours away from finding-kissing-falling-in-love with Trowa.

Our escort garnered wary looks and a wide berth from other passengers.  Some even gave up entirely on trying to catch the train and just flattened themselves against the nearest wall.  Make way; the badass express was comin’ through.

I was panting along with Trowa by the time we conquered the last step.  A black SUV growled to a halt on the street in front of us and Chang reached for the door.  Solo nodded for me to go first and I was glad I got “pull” duty instead of “push.”  Trowa more or less fell on top of me across the bench seat and Solo squeezed in after him.

“Talk to me, baby,” I begged quietly.

“Ki—ss,” he breathed and I reached for his chin, aligning our mouths.  His lips were cool against mine and it scared me.  His skin was, generally, colder to the touch than a human’s would be, but his lips had always been warm from the heat that emanated from his core.  I glided my tongue over his slack lower lip and he made a small sound of invitation.  I accepted.

Solo was watching.  Chang was sneering.  The driver of the car was clutching the wheel in a grip that turned her knuckles white, but I did not care.  At.  All.

“Go,” Chang ordered, disgust dripping from his tone and onto every surface of the car.

I stroked Trowa’s tongue with mine, rubbed my thumb back and forth over his jaw as I held him steady against sudden turns and swerves.  Solo’s shoulder was angled against Trowa, wedging him between us.  One arm was braced on the back of Chang’s headrest and the other stretched out across Trowa to grip the edge of the seat beside my knee: a makeshift seatbelt.

I watched Trowa as I kissed him, kissed him until I could see the lines of stress begin to fade from his brow.  Then I let myself close my eyes and focus on how worried I was and how much I needed him to be OK and how could I give him a dose of that healing magic he’d said was still – always – inside me?

 _Take what you need,_ I wanted to say, pressing my slippery hand tighter over the wound in his side and loving his mouth with mine.

He inhaled sharply and, for a terrifying moment, I thought I’d hurt him.

But then he moaned, soft and low, and his shoulders relaxed.  His hands stopped clutching at me and one rose to curl around the back of my neck.  I felt his tongue push against mine and suddenly he was in my mouth, shifting aside my worry with a hot wave of arousal.

_Oh, God.  Not here.  Please._

But Trowa inched closer as if he could smell how turned on I was, as if it was giving him strength.  Did it?  Could it?  I would totally suffer a boner if it made a difference.

Stop lights.

Right turns.

Left turns.

Lane changes.

Time and distance passed and my mouth was starting to get a little raw.  I stopped going with Trowa’s flow and slowed things down until I could pull back enough to whisper against his lips, “Better?”

He nodded, rubbing his swollen lips against mine.  “Yes.  It’s healing.  Thank you.”

“How can I help you more?”

He opened his eyes and smiled.  That single hour of sleep he’d probably managed the night before on the hard hotel bed was really showing.  “I need rest,” he confessed.  “And, after that, food.”

“OK.  We’ll make it happen, babe.”

“And, after _that…”_ he trailed off and gave me a long, hot look.

I swallowed.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

The hand that he’d curled around the back of my neck tugged me forward until my forehead tilted against his.

I could practically feel Chang and the driver’s collective revulsion and I sent a thankful glance at Solo.  Just— _thanks for being here, you jerk._

He was stalwartly facing forward, either trying to memorize our route or give me and Trowa as much privacy as possible, but he sensed my attention and his mouth quirked into a wry grin.  _It’s my job, dumb-bro._

I reaffirmed my grip on Trowa’s wound and stretched my arm around his shoulders, bopping Solo on the arm before twisting my fingers into the sleeve of Trowa’s fleece, clutching him tightly.  He drifted and dozed and all I could think as our foreheads rocked together with the motion of the car was, _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Just before we pulled off of the street, I realized I’d been given the VIP tour of London’s Chinatown.  Too bad it had all been a blur.  I had one last glimpse of kanji characters painted on the windows of exotic-looking shops and then the SUV rolled into the depths of a parking garage, corkscrewing down for what felt like an hour but couldn’t have been more than five minutes.  I tried not to tense up; Trowa needed the rest.

Finally, we braked to a stop next to a service elevator.  The parking space was reserved for deliveries.

Which kinda begged the question: just who would be receiving us?

“Get out,” Chang ordered and I didn’t bother getting pissy over his terse tone.  Solo opened the door on his side and I nudged Trowa awake.  This time, I let my brother do his asshole butler impersonation, opening the door on my side of the car, but he didn’t bow or call me _Lord Bumblefart_ or some dumb thing.  He simply reached in and took Trowa’s arm.

We got him out of the car without my hand slipping from Trowa’s side.  Then Chang herded us into the elevator.  The driver stayed in the car.

Chang pushed the button for the first basement level and up we went.

Trowa was trembling with exhaustion between me and my brother.  I wanted him in a comfortable bed in a safe room very badly.

The elevator doors slid open and revealed a plain metal door set into a concrete wall.  A security system screen awaited a code which Chang supplied as he blocked our view of the keypad.  I counted two cameras.  Their lenses zoomed in and scanned us.

A red light blinked on.  Given Chang’s attitude toward Trowa, I could guess what that warning light meant.  I picked a camera and stared down the operator on the other end of it, shifting my grip on the arm slung over my shoulder and interlacing my fingers with Trowa’s, locking our hands together.

The door opened, revealing a pitch black room beyond, and Chang entered.  I glanced at Solo.  Jaw clenched, he nodded.

Slowly, we followed him over the threshold—

—and jerked to a stop, frozen in place by a single spotlight shining in our eyes and the bright red dots of laser sights peppering our clothing.

“Wait here,” Chang said, striding ahead of us, and I angled my body so that I was all but embracing Trowa, shielding as much of his chest from those as-yet-unshot bullets as I could.

“Duo, no,” he breathed, his chin smoothing over my braid.

“Trowa, _yes,”_ I gritted out, glaring over my shoulder into the darkness.

He pressed his face to mine and I felt his eyelashes sweep against my temple followed by something burning-hot and wet sliding down my skin.  Trowa’s tears.

“How bad is the pain?” I quietly asked him.

He shook his head.  Sniffed wetly.  “I will be fine.”

I sighed, equal parts irritated at his evasiveness and comforted by the fact that it wasn’t a lie.

From somewhere, I heard a man’s voice say something in what was probably Chinese and the red dots winked out.  Soft lights glowed overhead, intensifying slowly enough to give our eyes a chance to adjust.  It was then that I looked up… and up some more.  The lobby we were in was easily two stories tall and a dozen snipers were positioned on catwalks that encircled the space.

What was the saying?  Like shooting ducks in a barrel?

I pulled Trowa impossibly closer.  He didn’t object.

“Follow me,” Chang commanded without introducing the older man beside him.

We did.

These halls were lined with dark wood.  Light spilled from rice paper lanterns spaced at uneven intervals.  Again and again, we turned corners and I realized this was a maze.  I looked up and, sure enough, the ceiling consisted of grates.  This here, I think, is what you’d call a turkey shoot.  Shit.  If we fucked up and offended somebody, our goose was gonna be cooked.

A door opened and Chang gestured us within.  It was a sitting room: antique couches and expensive rugs arranged on the hardwood floor with a raised platform at the back.  I nodded toward that, noting the woven mat flooring and stack of cushions off to the side.

“Can we get more light?” I asked and Chang flicked a second set of switches.  “Lemme take a look at ya, babe,” I breathed, easing Trowa down onto the tatami mats.  Solo stepped back and asked for a first aid kit which I absently corrected to include – “Hot water, gentle soap, clean towels – the less detergent the better.” – and lifted the hem of Trowa’s shirt and fleece.  They came off with a crinkle – that fucking envelope from Doktor S – and I tossed the whole bundle outta the way.  Then I crouched down and took a look at Trowa’s side.

It was right between his ribs.  A puncture – a quarter of an inch in diameter.  It didn’t look all that big, but from the way it had been bleeding, depth was a serious issue.  “How far in does it go?  Can you tell?” I asked.

Movement was going on by the door.  Chang and Solo were dealing with getting the clean-up and medical supplies, but neither of us paid them any mind.

Trowa shook his head.  “It’s healing, but it will take a little more time.”

“What the fuck kind of knife could do this?”

“Feykin,” he murmured.

I blinked up at him.  “A what now?”

He frowned slightly, not in pain but in concentration.  As if he was trying to call up a faded memory.  “It’s a long knife with a round base meant for one thing: disabling fey.” 

“Disable?” I checked.  “Not kill?”

He lifted a hand to arrange my fingertips against the space between his ribs, bracketing the wound.  “From this angle, between these bones, it is meant to pierce a nerve cluster under the heart.  The pain is excruciating, normally.”

Normally.  As in, excruciating for a fey without a companion on hand?  “Did my touch help?” I asked almost silently.

“So very much, yes.”

“And, the healing—?”

“Yes, thank you, Duo.”

“Shh.  Don’t thank me.  I don’t even know how I did it.”

He leaned closer.  “Kiss,” he said.  And I complied automatically before I realized that he’d been answering my question, not making a demand.  But it seemed a shame to stop, so I kissed him, softer than in the SUV, but with considerably more enjoyment now that I knew what was going on and he wasn’t about to die on me.

Solo tapped me on the shoulder and I drew back, turning to reach for the towel-wrapped bundle he held out.  He set a plastic first aid kit on the mat beside us and a bucket containing a hot water bottle at my feet.  “Lemme know if you need a third pair of hands,” he said, patting my shoulder and leaving me to it.

Trowa watched him head toward a sofa.  “Thank you, Solo.”

I was already working on organizing my supplies, but I could just about hear my brother’s shrug.  “I made you a promise, Trowa.”

“A promise?” I prompted Solo, pausing long enough to frown at him.

And also notice that Chang was no longer in the room.

“Yeah,” he said, sinking down onto one of the two sofas with a groan.  “I get that he’s important to you, D-man.  He can give you things I can’t.”  What those things were went unsaid, thank God.  “But the same can be said for me; I’m your brother an’ you know I’m always gonna be here for you.  Trowa an’ I have an agreement to respect that about each other.”

“When did this happen?” I interrogated Solo as I ran a dry cloth over Trowa’s hand to check for comfort.  He nodded his approval and I started soaking and soaping it up.

My brother snorted.  “Oh, we had bucket loads of quality time together when you crashed and burned for fourteen fucking hours, dork.”

“Shove it, moron.”  I tested the sudsy cloth again on Trowa’s skin and, again, it was fine.  I started dabbing at the smears of sticky green blood.

“Are you unhappy?” Trowa softly questioned, his fingertips nudging aside my bangs so he could see my face.

“You were attacked with a fucking feykin knife by someone trying to cause you excruciating pain, Tro.  Yeah, I’m a little miffed right now.”

“No.”  He clarified, “About my agreement with Solo?”

“What?  No, but… seriously.  You guys have got to start telling me what’s going on.  Starting with you, jerkwad—”  I glared at Solo.  “How the fuck do you know about fey an’ shit?”

His head dropped back and he sighed up at the ceiling.  “The old man.  Got a notebook from his estate lawyers when I turned eighteen.  I’ll show it to you when we get home.”

 _If_ we got home.

But neither of us said it aloud.  “And Chang?” I interrogated.

“My roommate in school,” he woodenly reported.  I guess I was just that predictable.  “In retrospect, I’m pretty sure the old man arranged for that, too.”

A Maxwell and a Chang.  Both, apparently, from families that had dealings of some kind with the fey.

Jesus.

“So, Trowa,” Solo asked, “the use of a fey knife.  Does that make it more likely that the asshole who did this to you is fey?”

Trowa bit back a helpless yawn of exhaustion.  “Possibly.”

“Possibly?” I checked.

Trowa gave me an exasperated look.  Yeah, he totally knew why I’d asked him myself.  “What can I say, Duo?  If the Maxwells and Changs have knowledge of the fey and possess fey artifacts, then perhaps a human would be capable of this.”

He had a point.  I said, “Well, anyway, it was someone who didn’t want you dead.”

I wasn’t sure if I was reassured by that or not.  I glanced at Trowa and I could see the same uncertainty in his expression.

I offered him antibiotic gel and a Band-aid for his cleaned wound, but he refused both despite my assurance that they “work like a charm on humans.”  Ah, well.  Maybe that was a strike against them where Trowa was concerned.  I arranged the cushions for him, draped the unused towels on top, and helped get him settled comfortably.

“Sit with me?” he asked as his eyelids drooped.  His fingers twitched toward me and I took his hand.

“Of course, babe.  Only the finest companion service for you.”  I petted his hair and he sighed happily.  In less than ten seconds, he was out.

I waited until his breathing slowed to a soft, even rhythm and then I quietly asked Solo, “What’s this artifact thing?”

“Eh, not sure.  Some kind of knife it sounds like.  All I know for sure is that the old man didn’t give it to me.”

“What’d he send you?”

Solo’s mouth kicked up into a wry grin.  “A diary full of what I thought were mad ravings about some magical realm, an account with some money in it _for emergencies,_ and explicit instructions to keep you the fuck away from Caerlaverock.”

Hah.  “Good thing you’re so good at following directions.”

“Is it?” he asked after a long, quiet moment.

“Huh?”

He rolled his head in my direction and looked from me to Trowa to our joined hands.  “I’m not gonna ask if you’ve got any regrets,” he told me, “because this ain’t over yet.  An’ who knows what could happen.  But… just promise me you’ll look out for yourself.  That’s what both me and Trowa want.  We want you safe an’ happy.”

Before I could come up with a response to that, Solo grinned widely.  “’Course, I’m pretty sure Tro’s got an ulterior motive for keeping ya close and _agreeable.”_ He winked at me, snickering at the blush I could feel warming my face.

“Shut up, doofus.”

“Make me, jackass.”

It was too bad I’d promised Tro that I’d stay right here, because Solo needed a good pummeling.  Like, right now.

“Promise me, Duo,” my brother said, staring at me hard.

I looked from his unsmiling face to Trowa’s closed eyes.  A lock of hair had fallen across his nose.  His brows twitched and his nose scrunched.  I nudged it aside before it woke him up.

“If you teach me what you know,” I answered, “I’d be better able to keep a promise like that.”

He sighed.  “And maybe what I teach you just ends up screwing you over.”

I shrugged.  “Those are my terms.”

“Fuck, you’re a pain in the ass.”

I grinned.  “A brother’s prerogative.”

“An’ you’re always tryin’ to have the last damn word in everything.”

“Gee, wonder where I get it from…”

“You—”

A knock on the door had Solo sitting up and my spine straightening.  Chang entered the room with what looked like a big plastic box, but it turned out to be three lacquered containers stacked together.  Each one held an assortment of foods.  I barely recognized most of it.  I guess the Chinese food we had in the States wasn’t the real deal.  No surprise there.

As my left hand was still clasping Trowa’s, I balanced the box on my knees and maneuvered the chopsticks with my right.  I tasted everything once, then avoided all the stuff that didn’t have cooked meat in it.  Though, really, Tro could use protein of some kind eventually.  I held off on finishing my meal until he was awake and could give me whatever he didn’t want from his own portions.

Again, Chang watched me and Trowa.  Like he was gathering data.

Solo drew his attention by asking about Chang’s university studies and I let them converse quietly.  It was boring just sitting here with a half-empty stomach, and I was tempted to lie down next to Trowa and see if I could get a little shut-eye.  So I did.

I opened my eyes some time later and grinned up at Trowa.  “Was that your stomach I just heard?” I asked, poking him in the belly through the fleece and T-shirt he’d put back on.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well, eat, damn it.”

“I did.  A little.”

“Lemme see your side.”  I lifted up his clothes and took a look.  It had scabbed over nicely: a small, dark green dot that could have been a birthmark if not for the color.  “Does it still hurt?”

He shook his head.  “Are you still hungry?”  He pointed to my interrupted lunch-slash-dinner.

“Yeah,” I admitted, “you want any of that?  I’ll trade ya for whatever you’re not interested in.”

He passed me his half-empty box and picked up mine, giving me a shy but happy grin that was miles better than the almond pudding I’d saved for him.  As I worked on polishing off the undesirable items from Trowa’s meal, I spotted Solo and Chang seated in a well-lit corner of the room at an honest-to-god table.  Books and scrolls were stacked between them and both my brother and our reluctant host were hunched over the documents.  Chang had a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses perched on his snobby little nose.

“Hey, what’s up, bro?” I said around a mouthful of fried beef, peppers, and noodles.

“Have you ever seen a curved knife – kinda like a sickle – with a handle and scabbard that has weird-ass symbols on it?”

I snorted.  “Duh.”

Both he and Chang looked up.

I said in between chews, “It’s in just about every Maxwell portrait at Caerlaverock.”

They continued staring at me.  I slowed my eating enough to ask, “What?  You didn’t notice?”

“Can you draw it?” Chang wanted to know.

I shook my head.  “The detail isn’t that good in the paintings.  You can tell there’s some kind of design on it – and that it’s not your standard filigree or whatever – but not what it’s actually supposed to be.  Why?  What’d you guys find?”

“Finish eating,” Chang told me.  “There is something you need to see.”

About ten minutes later, as we followed Chang out of the room and back through the maze of hallways, Solo slid open a door that looked pretty much like any of the other ones and pointed inside.  Trowa’s UNIQLO bag and my backpack were sitting just inside next to a coatrack.  Dude.  Chinese badasses had totally gone out to the hotel to collect my shit.  In fact, I’d completely forgotten about Tro’s UNIQLO bag – Solo’d probably ditched it on the train after Trowa’d been stabbed, but here it was.  “Your room,” he told me, then pointed across the hall to a door about a yard down.  “My room.”

“Got it,” I said and paid extra special attention to our route to wherever we were going… which turned out to be some kind of long gallery.  But everywhere there should have been a painting of some kind, there was a small, sliding cabinet door.  Beneath each was a plaque and, under that, bookcases that held various amounts of lopsided books and aged scrolls.  Some of them looked like a good sneeze would turn them to dust.

“This is the archive,” Chang said, looking from me to Trowa.  The stare he gave my fey boyfriend was so sharp that I reached back for Trowa’s hand.  “The history that the clan has gathered on the fey.”  He reached out to the first small door.  “Do not vomit in this room.”

What?

And then he slid the door open, revealing what looked like a large preservation jar for medical specimens, and a head suspended in clear liquid.

Oh my God.

When Chang seemed pretty sure that we weren’t gonna blow chunks all over the place, he told us, “This is the head of Treize, master of the Khushrenada Dell.  His crimes against humanity are indexed here.”  He pointed to the plaque.

While I was still trying to make sense of this, he moved on to the second door and opened that one.  “This is Dorothy of the Catalonia Dell, whom I believe you’ve met.  This head was taken in 1995.”

Yup, that was the face of the creepy female fey at Passport Services.  I gawped.  What the actual fuck?

“How…?”  I got that far and then my brain just stuttered to a halt.

“Unlike humans, there appear to be a fixed number of fey, and they can live indefinitely,” Wufei said.  “If one is killed, then the masters can summon it back.  Fey are not born from a womb, but grown in a matrix of some kind, emerging as adults with knowledge that they have absorbed from the other fey of their dell during their fetal development.  From the moment of their ‘birth,’ they are able to appear to be any age at all.  A child one moment and an elder the next.”

“Whoa,” I breathed.  I turned to Trowa to get his reaction to this, but his face was unreadable.

Chang continued, “The summoning process requires a human sacrifice.  A life for a life.”

I stared at Dorothy, feeling sick.  Someone had died so that _she_ could live?  Could do her marketeer thing at Passport Services for banished and fleeing fey, essentially forcing them into servitude to another master of sorts?  Fuck, that’s disgusting.

“Fey are selfish, self-absorbed creatures, constantly fighting amongst themselves for the right to command dells with the greatest access to humans and the best camouflage; the more humans one has at one’s disposal, the greater the fey army one can summon.”

Solo was watching me, probably wondering when I was gonna start freaking out.  Chang led us deeper into the gallery, past a dozen plaques that listed the location numbers of various texts which, if I was understanding the system correctly, contained an account of that particular fey’s ill deeds.

I was certainly starting to feel ill right about now.

“The older a fey is, the more devious, the more patient,” Chang lectured, coming to a stop.  “Fey have killed their own – killed themselves, even – for long-term personal gain, to advance their position among their peers.  You cannot play chess with a fey and expect to win.  Do you understand?”

I didn’t.  Didn’t want to.

Chang examined my blank expression and spelled it out, “A fey of considerable age and experience is more than capable of orchestrating its own death _and_ summoning to a small dell in Scotland where the most powerful fey artifact is rumored to be guarded by an old man with two young grandsons, either of which – if lured under and into the dell – could be used as collateral to bargain for that artifact, a knife that possesses the power to not just kill a fey, but to destroy it completely once and for all.  Obliterate its existence so that it can never be summoned again.  If a fey were to possess that blade – the Sicarian – then all the other dells would surrender to a single master.  And with the entire fey realm at its command, that master could launch an attack on the human world.”

I hung back, dread uncurling in my belly.

Chang speculated, “Suppose the fey chosen for the task of abducting one of the grandsons had previously allied himself with a different master?  Then he might merely mark his catch and release it, waiting years – twelve years – to recapture him.  Perhaps after his prey had reached adulthood and come into an inheritance?”

I shook my head.  I still clutched Trowa’s hand in mine.  I could feel his arm shaking.

“You must not underestimate the cold, analytical self-interest of the fey,” Chang cautioned me.  “Especially one of the longest lived creatures that we know of – the most formidable fey general of all time.  A monster with so many crimes to its name that it is mentioned in nearly every document in this room.”

My gaze darted from one overflowing bookshelf to the next, both the ones set below the sliding doors and the ones lining the wall right up to the edge of the ceiling.  My heart felt like it was spinning in my chest.  Goosebumps pebbled my arms, my back, my neck.  Saliva filled my mouth.

Wufei said nothing as he pushed open the door.  Not a word.  And, honestly, he didn’t have to.

I really did almost vomit.

Wouldn’t you if you saw your lover’s head floating in a jar?

“Give us the fey, Maxwell.”

“So you can fucking chop off his head!?” I yelled.

Chang’s eyes gleamed.  The corner of his mouth twisted up into a mockery of a smile.  “Of course not.”

 _Oh God._  

I ran.

Unopened cabinets concealing decapitated heads of once-dead-and-now-resurrected fey; shelves filled with bloody histories and inhumane cruelty – everything blurred.  I could hear Solo yelling, but his voice sounded far away.

Chang’s answering assertion – “He needed to know.” – rang like the tolling of a bell in my ears.

I skidded on the hardwood floor as I fought my way free of the horror, banged into and down the hall, slammed into the room that Solo had indicated as mine.  Mine and Trowa’s.

Trowa.

I slid the door closed, locked it, and turned toward him.  I hadn’t let go of his hand, so here he was.  Shivering.

I twisted my hand from his grasp and turned away.  I was so sickened and so furious that I could just—I could—I—!

I clamped my hands over my mouth and screamed.

And screamed.

And when I ran out of breath, I wrapped my braid around my fist to keep myself from punching the walls, from knocking over the polished draftsman table just there and the coatrack behind me and the hand-carved screen on my left and—

“Duo?  Duo?  …Duo?”

Trowa’s voice was coming closer.  That small, helpless, frightened voice of his six-year-old self.

“Duo?” he whispered.  “Please, Duo?”

I clawed at my braid.  Squeezed my eyes shut.  Drew a deep breath.  Held it.  Let it out.  Sucked in another.

But it was no good.  I was too furious.  Enraged.  “Bastard,” I hissed.  “Fucking bastard.  How dare—!”

Clenching my jaw, I bit back another scream.  I counted to ten, and then I said, “Trowa.”

“Y-yes?”

I turned and was startled to find him kneeling on the hardwood floor, cringing and trembling.  I fell to my knees and yanked him into my arms.  “Bastard,” I hissed again, incapable of coming up with a more fitting curse.  “I could kill—Goddamn it—how dare—!”

Trowa whimpered, his hands clutching at my jacket.  His terror was the only thing that made it through the roaring wall of my fury.  I palmed the back of his head, fisted a hand in his hair, and finally managed to spit out a complete sentence.  “I’m gonna fucking kill Chang.”

Trowa stopped breathing, gasped, and sobbed once.

“I cannot believe that asshole.  How dare he judge—just—you’re fey, OK?  I get that.  You’re not human.  I get that.  But he doesn’t.  Jesus fucking Christ.  How dare he fucking judge you!”

I felt Trowa’s arms curl around my waist.  His hold was tentative, but when I started rocking us back and forth, he clamped onto me like we were standing on a precipice and I was his anchor to the sheer rock wall at his back.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed into his ear.  “For earlier.  At the passport office.  I was doing the same thing he just did.  Blaming you for things I can never understand.”

He let out a long, shuddering breath.

“The masters gave you a job to do—”  _Procurement of sacrifices._   “—and everything in me is just—I’m so furious that this is the way your world works.  That you had to do that.  And I’d give anything to change it.  I’m—I’m just so damn sorry, Trowa.”

“S-sorry?” he whimpered.  “W-will you g-give me t-to him?”

I stopped rocking.  Froze.  His words bounced inside my petrified skull.  I grabbed his shoulders and jerked him back.  “What!?”

He was nearly white and, when I cupped his face in my hands, his skin wasn’t just icy, it was arctic.  He was terrified.  “Please d-don’t s-send me away,” he whispered.

“Send you—!  Why the hell would I—?”

Trowa’s eyes closed and his face paled even further with his anguish.  “The th-things he said.  Maybe I—could I—Did I plan this, Duo?”

What could I say to that?  To the wild look in his eyes?  “I dunno, baby, but… twelve years of burning shame?”  I shook my head.  “If fey are as selfish as Chang says—”  And, in all truth, I could kinda see it; Trowa was like a child in a lot of ways, but— “there’s no way you’d plan your own suffering.  It just—defies logic.  Fey logic.”

He made a sound, something between a hiccup and a gasp, and his fingers curled into the denim of my jacket.  I lurched to my feet and coaxed him up, led him across the room and behind the screen.  There were two futons laid out on the tatami floor.  We’d only need one.  I unknotted and kicked off my boots.  He followed my lead and toed off his shoes.  I dropped my jacket on the floor.  He unzipped and shed his fleece.  The envelope from Doktor S fell and skidded off toward the wall.

I pulled the covers back and held out my hand for Trowa.  He fell against me, burrowing and clinging, and I threw the goose down comforter over us, holding him close.  My hand smoothed over his side, over the spot where he’d been stabbed and, suddenly, I was _this_ close to fucking throwing myself in front of a Goddamn train.

“Oh, God, baby.  I’m so sorry.  Are you hurt?  Jesus, what the fuck was I thinking running around with you like that?  I’m such an idiot.  If I ever do something like that again, you have to tell me to stop or just tell me to leave you the fuck alone or—”

His lips stilled mine.  Stilled, and then coaxed them into slower, gentler motions.  “Duo,” he breathed against my mouth, “you’re perfect.”

I shifted, reaching up to press his bangs back from his face.  “Baby,” I groaned as my fingertips were painted with his hot tears.  “You _are_ hurt.”  I was such a fucking disappointment.

He shook his head.  “No, not hurt.  Not like that.”

“Like how then?”

Our gazes met.  “I don’t know.  It hurts.  It hurts here.”  He pressed my hand to the center of his chest and for a moment I thought he was trying to tell me that the nightmare wasn’t over – that there was internal bleeding we had to deal with.

“Your kindnesses – you protect me – you give so freely – it hurts sometimes.  Is it too much happiness?”

Oh.  Oh my God.  I petted his hair as I fought back the tide of emotion that threatened to burst my chest open.  “Humans sometimes call it love.”

“Love?”  He considered that, studying my expression, probably looking for a clue as to what the right response would be, what I would want to hear.  Eventually, he asked, “Do I love you, Duo?”

“I dunno, baby.  That’s up to you.”  And then, because if he said another word I was going to start sobbing, I closed the distance between us and kissed him.

The sound he made this time was exquisite.  A gasp of relief and a moan of pure need that mixed together until it was all delight.  I shivered in the wake of hot arousal sweeping over me.  I spared a thought for checking to see if he still wanted that _“and after…”_ bit, but his fingers curled into my braid and he shifted closer.  I grabbed his hip and pulled myself flush against him.  He groaned into my mouth and that wave of arousal turned into a roaring tempest.

“Please,” I begged between kisses that claimed more and more of his hot mouth, “you have to tell me if I hurt you.”

“You won’t.  You can’t,” he answered and I struggled to slow down.  He was right; I could overwhelm whatever pain he felt just by kissing him, touching him, moving inside him.

Fuck, how I wanted that again.  Wanted to show him how much nicer a warm bed was than a rotting log in the middle of the cold forest.  He rocked his hips against mine and I squeaked out a groan at the feel of him – already hard.  Fully hard.  I myself was nearly there.

I pulled back.  “Wait—right here.  Don’t move,” I told him and tore through the room to get to my backpack.  While Solo and Trowa had been buying snacks for our bus trip from Dumfries, I’d hit up the H&BA section for supplies of a different kind.  Of course, that’d been back before I’d noticed Trowa’s aversion to chemicals so maybe this was a bad idea.  Well, I supposed I could ask him.

When I returned, he’d just finished wiggling out of the jeans he’d borrowed from Solo – there was a green bloodstain on the waistband – and I knelt between his knees.  His hands paused in the act of reaching for the silk leggings and I held up the items in my hands for his inspection.  A small bottle of personal lubricant and a box of condoms.

“What are those?” he asked.

I opened the bottle and squeezed a bit onto my fingers.  He reached out to touch it, smear it on his fingertips, and bring it to his nose for a sniff.

“Doesn’t smell great,” I admitted.  “But it’s slick and it’s meant for, uh…”

“Having you inside me,” he realized, a hot gleam flashing in his eyes.  “Yes.”

I opened the box of condoms, and fished out the instructions paper to show him the illustrations.  “And this a kind of glove so that – well, there are lotsa reasons to use it – less mess for one—”

Selecting one condom, I tore open the package and Trowa took it from me, investigating it with curiosity, hissing when he touched a fingertip to the latex.  “No.”

I took it back, stuffed it in the box, and set it aside.  Lube and the towels I’d scooped up from our little attached half bath: all systems were “go” for launch.  I reached for his hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing his fingertips.  “I can be inside of you, if you want.  Or I can suck you off again.  Or both.”

He inhaled sharply.

“But not at the same time,” I amended.  “I’m not that flexible.”

“Duo, inside me, Duo.  Inside me.”

I groaned, my cock swelling to full hardness with breath-taking speed.  “We gotta do this slow, OK, baby?”

He nodded eagerly and reached for my shirt.

I bowed to him and let him pull it off.  Then, I slid my hands under his bloodstained shirt, bunching it up and easing him out of it.  I tossed it off to the side and just stayed right where I was stretched out over him, balanced on my elbows.  My bangs hung down and brushed his brow.  His cool hands pressed against my face and pushed my hair back.  There was nothing between his gaze and mine.  God, he had the most beautiful eyes.

My head tilted and our mouths met.  We’d kissed so many times that it was difficult to describe how this one was different.  His taste was the same – still as addictive as ever.  The heat.  The shape and movements of his tongue.  The ridges of his teeth.  His soft lips.  This was still me-kissing-Trowa.  But there was something more now.  Maybe it was me.  Maybe I was still falling for him.  Maybe I’d reached a new depth that turned every hot, panting breath and steamy touch into a throb of my heart.  A dot or dash – Morse code in my blood.

Trowa’s legs wrapped around my waist and his hands dived into my braid.  Helpless to his need, I rolled my hips against his in shallow thrusts, our bodies gently kissing through layers of fabric.  I spanned the back of his neck with a hand and rubbed the corded muscles there.

“Shh,” I breathed against his lips, scolding both of us to, “slow down.  Just let yourself feel it.”

He whimpered, his fingers tightening briefly when I pressed a slow kiss to the side of his neck.  I pulled away, exhaled against his skin, and returned to the same spot, kissing him again.  His fingers uncurled, but his hands remained right where they were, holding onto me.

“Yes,” I groaned.  “Hold on to me.  I won’t let you go, baby.”

He nodded, his chin rubbing against my brow.  I smoothed my hands along his arms as I hunched lower to nuzzle his chest, flick his nipples with my tongue, suck his skin hard enough to lift his flesh against the edge of my teeth.

“Nnnuh, Duo…”

“More of the same?” I breathed against a wet, reddened circle that I’d just made.

“Ah, I—I want—”  He pushed at the waistband of my jeans and I rose up, kneeling between his spread thighs.  I collected his hands and brought them to rest on my denim-clad legs, and then I let my own hands fall away.  Our skin wasn’t in contact and Trowa was able to relax back against the pillow and take a few calming breaths.

“How’s your side?” I checked, still worried that I’d put pressure on it or he’d tensed up and hurt it again.

“Tender.  A little.”

I offered, “We can stop.  Maybe we should if—”

“No.”  His hands reached for the button and zipper at the front of my jeans and I let him unfasten and push them down my hips.  When we’d been together before, Trowa hadn’t really seen me.  We’d always been too busy kissing for a visual survey.  He took the time now.

I bemoaned my lack of defined muscles.  Even a little chest hair might have been nice.  My happy trail was more of the will o’ the wisp variety than an actual path for fingertips to follow.  I wanted so badly to be _more_ than I was, wanted my body to be something that looked amazing beside his, which was so fucking perfect I could weep.

“Duo, my chosen,” he breathed and ran his thumb over the edge of a hipbone, then brushed his fingertips along my ribs, placed his palm over my heart.  “Please.”

I squirmed out of my jeans and underwear, and then reached for the waist of his tights.  But I didn’t rush it.  I tugged and nudged them down his legs, my mouth following in their wake to nip his thigh, lick the scar atop his knee, and press kisses to the top of his foot.  I palmed his heel and ran my hand up, over his calf, rubbed circles into the tender skin behind his knee, and greedily massaged my way up the back of his leg.  I wanted to push his thighs wide apart, baring his arousal to me, but his wound.  I could not let him get hurt again.  I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“I’ve asked you so many questions,” I observed when he bit his lip and the flash of his teeth had made me realize, “but you don’t ask me many at all.  You can if you want to.”

“Words,” he breathed.  “Lies are made of words.  Fey—we watch.  I like watching you.”

I ran my hands up and over his hips.  “And you never wonder why I like or do or say certain things?”

“Of course.”

“But you’re enjoying the mystery?” I teased.

He shook his head, disagreeing.  “We have time, don’t we?  I can watch and you can tell me in your own way.”  His back bowed as I fanned my thumbs over his skin, so close to his cock but not touching.  “Sometimes, you open to me.  A look in your eyes.  A new smile.  A gesture just for me.  Freely given.”

I could see the appeal.  However—“Words can be nice, too,” I argued persuasively.  “For instance—”  I lowered my mouth until I pressed a kiss to the center of his belly.  “Beautiful.”

He shivered.

“Or this—”  I wrapped my fingers around his cock and slowly licked the underside, from the base to the head.  “Addictive.”  The hot noise he made shot right to my groin.  “Ah, fuck, baby.  The way you sound,” I panted, my lips brushing against the smooth, hot skin of his cockhead, “just makes me wanna hear it over an’ over.”

He mewled and I kissed him wetly in reward.

“Ah—ah—inside me, Duo.  I’ll—ah-hah—make all the noises you’d like.”

I chuckled.  A fey bargain.  Sure, we could do that.  “Agreed,” I told him, looking up and pinning him with a stare, thrilled when he actually looked a little anxious.  I grinned and reached for the pillow from the neighboring futon, wrapping it in a hand towel.

“Hips up, baby.”

He complied, watching me as I arranged the support beneath him.  I withdrew my touch from his skin and checked one more time, “Your side?”

“Is _fine.”_

I held up my hands in surrender.  “OK.  Got it.”  I smiled for him – God, he was incredible – and his lips curved helplessly in reply.  I squeezed a generous amount of lubricant onto my fingers and, with my other hand, nudged his knee – the one not directly below his newest scar – up and over my arm.  I scooted closer to him, held his gaze, and applied my mouth to the scar on his knee as my fingers pressed against him.

His breath caught.  So did mine.  He was so fucking hot.

“Ahhh,” he moaned, his fingers splaying over the sheet and his neck arching.

I rubbed against him, learning how firm he liked it, how slow, how rhythmic.  I watched him react and I realized he was right; watching could be even better than hearing the words.

“Trowa,” I breathed and one finger slid inside.

“Hnnnnnn!”  His back arched.  I glanced back and watched his toes curl.  Fuck.  We were only just getting started.

I rubbed him firmly, loving every little noise of approval he made as I moved in him just like how I wanted to stroke him with my cock.  Wasn’t very confident that I’d be able to hold out long enough to manage it, though, but yeah.  If I could keep from coming the instant I breached him, I was gonna roll my hips just like this, against him right here, listen to each rich note of his pleasure.

His fingers curled but could find no purchase against the sheet and I wondered if he’d get louder with two fingers.

“Uhn, Duo!” he bemoaned, his hips jerking as I slid out.

“You want one or two?” I asked.

“You,” he answered.  “I want you.”

“We’ll get there,” I promised, “but you’re getting two.  Bear down for me, baby.  Ahh, fuck, yes.  _Trowa.”_

“Nuuuuh!”  That had almost been a wail.  A soft one, but definitely more than a groan.  His hips moved with my slick hand.  His hands sought something to hold onto and he ended up reaching behind his head to grab the edge of the futon until he was stretched out, his body undulating with my rhythm, his nipples peaked and arousal bobbing, leaking, flushed so dark it looked like one touch would bring him off.

Oh, Jesus.

If we hadn’t agreed that I would be inside of him, I would have given sucking him off another shot.

Next time.

I scissored my fingers, stretching him as best I could despite how fucking tight he was.  So tight and getting tighter by the second.

“Three, now, baby.  Slowly.”

He made an impatient noise in response to the directive, but then I pulled back far enough to add the third and his mouth fell open as those three slippery digits slid past his guarding muscle.

“Too much?” I asked.

His eyes opened and holy fuck they were nearly black, glazed with ecstasy.  His hips thrust against my hand and my touch went deep enough to press against that spot – the one that was supposed to make you lose your mind, render you speechless, set off fireworks.

Trowa shuddered, his thighs falling open and his hips rolling again and again as he fought for breath.  And, the noises he was making—

“Nuh—nuh—Duo—ah—ple—ase—!”

I was loathe to do it because holy shit he was enjoying this, but I needed to check that he was really all right before we hit the point of no return.  I withdrew and his whine of protest nearly made me say to hell with our regularly scheduled check-up.  I drew a deep breath.  “Trowa?  How do you feel, baby?  Are you sore?”

“Now, Duo.  Inside, now.”

I swallowed, reached for the lube again and didn’t bother to wait for it to warm as I coated my cock.  I hissed at the coolness and it distracted me enough so that I didn’t come in my own hand.  I helped myself to the second towel, and then I was lifting his legs, one went around my waist.  The other over my shoulder.  I kissed his thigh as I maneuvered closer, touched my cockhead to his hot pucker.  He tilted his hips up and I angled forward and—

I panted.

So hot.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

So tight.

I gritted my teeth.

So slick.

I felt my back arch.

So deep.

I stopped, flush with his body.

“Trowa.”

“Nuh…ah…hmm…Duo…”

I flexed my fingers over his skin and took a deep breath, thought thoughts of winter breezes and icy showers and snow angels.  Handfuls of snow melting down the back of my collar.  A runny nose and toes gone numb in soaked socks.  My chin tilted forward and I opened my eyes, meeting Trowa’s gaze which was empty of everything but sensation and me.  My cock throbbed in time with my pounding heart.

My hands curled around Trowa’s hips and I pulled him tight against me.  He gasped and I rocked my hips shallowly, thrusting up, hoping to rub him right where—

“Duo!  Ahh!”  His legs tightened around me, drawing me closer and I moved again.  Again.  Again.

I was never going to get tired of hearing him shout my name in passion.  His little groans of surrender and greedy whines.  A whimper when he thought he couldn’t take any more and a moan when he realized there was still sensation yet to be felt.

Two minutes couldn’t have passed, but I was done.  No strength left to hold back.  I was gonna come inside him, so deep inside him.  At the mere thought of it – shit, it was happening.  I wanted to wrap a hand around his cock, wanted to feel him come around me so damn badly, but my fingers were digging into his hips and they just would not release.

“Trowa!”  _I’m sorry._   And then instinct took me over, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, snapping my hips forward, driving into him again and again.  Ah fuck so deep hot tight please just let me be so deep and let me take just a bit a lot unending more more more more more—!

And then he was clamping around me. Tight.  Tighter.  Tighter yet.  I yanked him toward me with surge of sudden strength – he screamed – and I—

I blacked out.  But just for a minute.  OK, maybe a long minute.

I breathed.  Blinked.  Opened my eyes and found Trowa’s very smug smile waiting for me.  He didn’t say anything.  Hell, he didn’t have to.  He was bracing my shoulders up so I didn’t swan dive onto his collar bone.

With a monumental effort, I drew my trembling arms forward and planted my hands on the futon mattress.  “So,” I huffed out on a breath, “better than the log?”

“Um-hm.”

I answered his dreamy hum with a tired smile.  Looking down, I was relieved to see the splash of spunk on his belly.  He watched me lean down and lick up one of the splatters.  I lifted my face, showing him the smear on my tongue before I drew it into my mouth, closed my lips, and swallowed.

“Duo,” he groaned, pulling me forward to kiss my lips so sweetly.  The sweetness of his lips combined with the tang on my tongue and I would have given my braid to be hard again, but there was just no way.  Absolutely no way.

I pressed our foreheads together, rubbed the tip of his nose with mine, and thrilled at the feel of his hands roving over my back.  But my arms were still kind of shaky, so I had to pull away too soon, had to feel myself slide out of him.  I decided that this was the moment I liked least.

Equipment rubbed down and towels chucked an acceptable distance away, I burrowed under the covers with him.  I still had to brush my teeth and I’d do that.  Just five more minutes here with Trowa and then I’d, y’know, go and… do… that…

“Duo?”

“Hm?”  I inhaled sharply, jerking back from the edge of sleep.

“How do I know whether I love you?”

“It’s different for everyone,” I murmured, barely aware of what I was saying.  “Just, y’know, watch other people, I guess.  People who look like they’re in love, who shouldn’t be in love but are, who ought to be in love but aren’t.  You’ll find your answer.”

“In the meantime, I have you,” he breathed.  It was not a question, and that made me smile.

I was not smiling the next day, however.

“Jesus fried a chicken, Meiran!” I cursed, knocking aside her arm with a hasty block.  “Would you _please_ stop trying to punch my dick?”

She grinned.  “On the bright side, if it were a decent size, I would have managed to land a hit by now.”

Ooh, ouch.  It looked like yesterday’s SUV driver, Miss Long Meiran, had issues with me.  I mused, “I can’t decide if you really like me or really hate me.”

“Or I like to hate you?”

“Sure.  I can see that.”

Just like I could see that everyone here in this damn kung fu dojo was fucking insane.  The clan had a Goddamn army all trained up for their little pet project of collecting decapitated fey heads.  And here I was just trying to keep up.

I glanced in Trowa’s direction, hating that he was essentially a bunny rabbit in a forest of wolves.  Yeah, he might be able to outsmart and outmaneuver them, but it wasn’t fair that he should fear for his life.  No matter how immortal he was.

At least the dojo sensei was standing with him, keeping the students from doing more than flash impotent glares in his direction.  I wished with everything in me that we could make a break for it.  The ground level doors were just over there!  I could see oblivious Londoners walking past the wall of windows.  Freedom was just a room away… with only forty-some black belt badasses between us and escape.

Fuck.

I was so gonna blacken both of Solo’s eyes for this.  This and also for pounding on the door until I’d answered his call just so he could yank me outta bed – and away from a little morning wood appreciation – at six o’clock in the freakin’ morning with the ultimatum, “Get out here and learn shit or I’m coming in there to drag your ass out here myself!  Five minutes!”

I’d groaned, tossed my phone away, and asked Trowa what it was like to be an only child.

“Pay attention!” Meiran barked.  “You think I’m doing this for my benefit?”

“Sure looks like you’re having a good time,” I answered.

“Right.  Let’s give you proper motivation.”  She backed off and moved toward Trowa.  I leaped over to block her.  She tried to step around me.  Nope.  Not happening.  With a grin, she lifted her be-gloved hands.  I assumed the stance I’d been taught, ready for her next attack.

Right-right-left-right-left-right-right.

For the record, drawing in your opponent was hell on your ego.  And your everything else.

I took a step back; she took a step forward.

I charged her, ramming her with my shoulder and sending a left hook toward her spiffy padded sparring helmet.  It knocked her a step and a half away and I repositioned myself between her and Trowa.  I was winded and hating how Chang and Solo were still going at it in the dojo’s other sparring space.  Nonstop.  Jesus.  I’d known Solo could do karate and whatever, but I’d never really seen him go all-out, no-holds-barred before.

“Idiot!” Meiran yelled around her mouthpiece.  “Keep up the attack!”

 _But I’m tired and hungry and I wanna kiss Trowa,_ I whined in silence.  With a sigh, I pulled my shaking arms up in front of me.  Jesus, I’d give anything to get the hell outta here.

Meiran swung, aiming for my head and I flinched back, knocking her fist away with more oh-shit-instinct than actual confidence.

Just then, the dojo door swung open and two people entered.  Not students by the look of their suits.  And, behind them five uniformed police officers squeezed inside.  What the fuck was this?

Meiran must have decided I wasn’t faking my distraction because she turned around instead of clobbering me in the face.  I glanced at the instructor, but he didn’t move to greet the authorities.  He watched their approach as they skirted the students obediently performing a series of memorized forms.

One of the suits zeroed in on Chang and Solo and two officers peeled off from the group to shadow him.  The other – a woman with wire-rimmed glasses and straight brown hair – set her sights on our little group.  “Duo Maxwell?” she asked crisply.

“Er…”  Should I say “no?”  Or, “yes?”  Or the magic 8-ball classic: “ask again?”

In the end it didn’t matter.  She turned her attention toward the guy standing at my back.  “Trowa Barton.  You are both being placed under arrest.”

“What!?” I squawked.  “What are the charges?”  And _Barton?_   What the hell?

She gestured for the accompanying officers to approach us.

I could hear Chang noisily demanding to see an arrest warrant and I gaped as Solo was cuffed and dragged toward the door.  I was still gaping when my sparring gear was tugged off and the metal handcuffs snapped on.

The lead officer informed us, “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.  Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

I cast a wild look at Trowa and he stared at me with silent panic.

Oh, God.  Kung fu or no kung fu, there was nothing I could do to protect him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to leave comments for me but don't know what to say HERE LET THIS LOVELY CHECKLIST GUIDE YOU. It's fill-in-the-blank. (^_~)
> 
> When Solo and Wufei were snarking on the subway, ________________.  
> When Trowa got stabbed, I _______________________.  
> I think it's ______________________ when Duo and Trowa kiss.  
> I ______________________ when Duo tried to shield Tro from the snipers.  
> Wufei is _______________________.  
> Solo and Trowa's pact is ___________________.  
> The archive is _________________________.  
> When Duo freaked out, I _______________________.  
> When Trowa thought Duo was angry at him, I ___________________.  
> The smutty bits were ____________________.  
> The love conversations were __________________.  
> Meiran is ______________________.  
> When the cops showed up, I ___________________.  
> I want to know more about ______________________.


	4. Boston Benefactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo Maxwell’s Guide to Survival among the Fey: The learning curve. Get it. Own it. Use it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music I wrote to: “A Walk Outside” by Butterfly Boucher

Remember when I recommended London traffic for your next visit?  Well, lemme tell ya, if you didn’t have the chance to see the inside of a jail cell, then you were seriously missing out.

I sat on the hard bench, elbows on my thighs, hands in my hair, and suffered through the unending terror of losing my fucking mind.  I wanted _Trowa’s_ hands in my hair.  I wanted _my_ arms over _his_ shoulders.  Wanted _his_ hips between _my_ thighs as we spooned or stacked or whatever the hell you called it when one person was sitting behind another.  Like that pillow deal with the armrests.  What was that thing called again?

A husband.

Oh.

I remembered Solo’s plan to explain Tro’s rush for a passport: _“Here’s the deal: you two are engaged.”_  Engaged.  “Betrothed to wed,” I’d further explained in response to Trowa’s bafflement.  He hadn’t looked all that impressed with the concept but I—shit.  I was.  I really was a moron.  An even bigger moron than Solo.  I snorted out a breath.  It was either that or let the tears take a turn.

A hand rubbed between my shoulders.  “It’s gonna be all right, li’l bro.”

My fingers curled tighter in the strands until my scalp stung.  “Piss off,” I told him.

He sat down next to me, his knee bumping mine.  Jesus fried a chicken, his head was so far up his ass, I‘d have to send a telegram via his proctologist to get a message to him.

But what I truly wanted was to get word to Trowa.  Smoke signals would do.  Jesus.  Trowa was in interrogation with that Inspector Une woman and I just—fuck—what the hell was happening with him?  Was he OK?  Was she fey?  Were the masters gonna haul him back to the dell?  Was his head gonna end up in Chinatown as part of a matched set of bookends?

I breathed through my gritted teeth.

“Hey,” Solo said, “if I asked you about what happened that day you got lost in the woods, would I get a different answer now?”

“Now that you’re all Mister Wizard, you mean?”

“Yeah, now that you can appreciate how much I’m rocking this magic shit.”

I was tempted to dump him off the bench onto the concrete floor, but fuck it.  Talking would pass the time.  If I talked, I wouldn’t be thinking about all the things that Trowa might be going through that I couldn’t do a damn thing about from behind these fucking bars.

“Well, I freaked out.  Fell down and scraped up my knees.  That’s when Trowa found me—”  The whole story – as much as I could remember of that day – poured out.  Right down to the kiss on my cheek.  _“Go Duo.  Live.  Be free.”_

Except I didn’t want to be free if it meant he wasn’t with me anymore.  I didn’t say it, but I wondered—if all that had happened when I was older, like _now,_ would I have been able to walk away from him as he’d begged me to do that dusk at the edge of the forest?  No.  Definitely not.  No way in hell.

To his credit, Solo didn’t interrupt me.  Just listened and waited until the end before saying, “I outta kill him.”

“Who?” I bleated in shock.

“Trowa, duh.  He tried to abduct my six-year-old little brother!”

I blinked at him for a solid ten seconds before I made the connection.  Trowa was a fey.  Though fey could appear as children and while they were childlike, they were _not_ children.  Point in case, the relationship Trowa and I had now was _not_ the Cowboys-and-Indians-in-the-backyard kind of deal.  So, what had he expected from me at six years old?  Um, yeah… that looked kinda-sorta-really bad.

“But he didn’t,” I reminded Solo.

“A fucking technicality.”

“Hey, shithead, he suffered twelve years of unending, burning pain.  Alone.  The debt is paid.  Move on.”

He let out a long breath.

I demanded, “How come you didn’t ask _him_ for the story while I was comatose that first night?”  They’d had _so_ much time to male bond and all.

“Because I knew what he was and I didn’t want to put him in a position where he’d have to lie to me on the first day of him being your, um…”

“Fiancé?” I snarked.

“Shut up, dickwad.”

“Make me, asswipe.”

“Jesus.  Don’t fucking tempt me, Duo.”

And the fact that he’d said my name meant he was serious.  I backed off.  I wasn’t really after a brawl.  All I wanted was Trowa.  “At least we’re out of Chinatown.”

Solo scowled.  “We were safe there.”

“Yeah.  My point exactly.  _We_ were safe.  _Trowa_ was a sneeze away from – what – torture?  Research?  Vengeance—whatever the hell Chang thinks that is?”

My brother didn’t say anything for a long moment.  And then he offered quietly, “I never would have let them – any of them – lay a hand on him.  Never.  I promised him.”

Yeah.  I remembered.  You didn’t let someone you’d sworn to respect take a metaphorical bullet if you could do something about it.  Solo had made that vow to Trowa.  And us Maxwell men, we keep our promises.  To the death.

“D’you think the old man died how they said?  The heart attack or whatever?” I dared to ask.

“You wanna head back to Dumfries, saunter up to that damn portal that trapped you for twelve frickin’ years, knock on a tree an’ ask if the masters had anything to do with it?”

“Sure.  I’m stockin’ granola bars and beef jerky.  Road trip.”

Solo bumped my shoulder.  “Dork.”

I shoved him back.  “Moron.”

My brother and I were quiet for another long moment, and then I blurted, “I can’t go back without him.”

“We won’t,” he promised.  A Maxwell promise.

The door to the detention area opened and I was instantly on my feet, lunging for the bars, and angling for a look down the hall.  Praying: _Please be Trowa please let him be OK please—_

I frowned as a guy in a black hoodie was ushered down the hall to the cell opposite ours.  The officer gestured him through the barred door, locked up in his wake, and then headed back to the precinct offices.  The far door clanged shut and left us surrounded by dishwater-grey walls and silence once again. 

Our new neighbor took a moment to chart the dimensions of his accommodations and then he turned around and leaned his hands through the bars.  The cuff of his hoodie slid up his right arm and I saw what I was most expecting and most dreading to see: a smear of something dark green along one wrist.

He tugged the hood off of his head with the other hand, revealing the craziest bedhead of dark brown hair I’d ever seen and a pair of electric blue eyes.

“You,” I spat.

He nodded.  “Yes.  Me.”

I didn’t realize I was shaking until Solo pressed his shoulder against mine.  “Who the hell is this?”

“The fucking bag of shit that hurt Tro on the train.”

“Oh.  I see.”  Solo’s glare joined mine.

The recipient of our ire had the nerve to stare back at us, the corner of his mouth kicking up.

“Is something amusing you, asshole?” I challenged.

“You _people._   So irrationally protective.  We can take care of ourselves.”

So this jerkwad was fey.  “Why’d you do it?”

He tilted his head.  “A fair question.  I will answer when _Tro_ is here as the answer is for him.  I don’t enjoy repeating myself.”

“You got a name or are you saving that for Trowa, too?”

“He may already know it so, no, I needn’t _save_ it for him.  And if he doesn’t remember, you can introduce us.  Yuy,” he said, miming a handshake through the bars of his cell, “Heero Yuy.”

“What are you doing in here, Heero Yuy?” Solo asked, his gaze moving from the fey’s clean hands to the smear of fey blood on his wrist.

I seconded that question: no way had he been tossed in here for attacking Trowa.  We hadn’t reported the crime and the blood on the feykin would have been green—unrecognizable as blood to normal people.  Had he been caught with the knife on him?  Concealment of a dangerous weapon?

Or had he planned his arrest?  Was he here to get close enough to Trowa to try and kill him this time?

“I have information for him,” he replied, “and, by extension, both of you.”  He shrugged a shoulder.  “In the meantime, I’m being held for shoplifting.”

I barked out a hard laugh.  “What’d you swipe?”

Again, his mouth tilted up at the corners.  “Condoms.”

I snickered through my nose.  “Really?  Wasn’t under the impression that guys like you would wanna use ‘em.”

One dark brown brow arched upward.  “I’m not a healer.”

I sobered.  “A healer?”  My mind was racing – Trowa, healing magic, sensitivity to harsh chemicals and fibers—

Heero nodded.  “You know what he can do.  It’s a unique ability.  That’s what made him so influential.  Before.”

“A—a general,” I whispered, deciding at the last possible moment that it might be best to skip over the word “fey.”

“The greatest we have ever known.  You cannot imagine the following.”

I kinda could.  I’d been wondering why fey would risk their lives, risk throwing away everything they’d gained in their current existence, to go off to battle like Chang had said.  I mean, sure, they’d be brought back eventually, but they’d be starting over from square one; they’d probably be just as uncertain and blank as Trowa was now.  But if your leader could heal you with a touch…?

Whoa.

“Duo Maxwell,” Heero said quietly, solemnly, “you can never forget what he is as opposed to what you are.  That fact will never change.  If you can accept it, there will be great things in your future.”

“I do—I have accepted him.”

“As he is now, perhaps,” Heero allowed.  “That may change.  He will not be able to abandon his past.  He is too important to us.”

I jerked my chin in his direction.  “If that’s true, how come you just left him for twelve years?”

“We looked.  But his location was kept a secret.  For obvious reasons.”

I could only begin to list them: Trowa’s value as a healer, his potential to lead a freakin’ army of fey loyal to him alone, the possibility of the Sicarian being nearby… and whatever the hell else was going on that I didn’t know about.  Yet.

“Does he have any allies?” Solo asked.

Heero nodded slowly.

“Who, Goddamn it?” I hissed, but just then the door opened again and I forgot Heero like he was last night’s sitcom.  I watched, breath held, as Trowa came into view.  He looked fine.  A little irritated, but that was to be expected given the circumstances.

Still, I waited to see which cell he was gonna be ushered into and tried to hide my obvious relief when the officer unlocked the door to ours.  Trowa moved to stand next to me as the officer’s keys jangled, locking us up again.  The minute the detention area door closed at the end of the hall, I reached out for Trowa’s hand.  His grip was hard and cold and I wanted to kiss some warmth back into him, but he wasn’t injured and this wasn’t really the place.

“Are you all right?” he asked me before I could ask him.

I nodded.  “You?”

“Fine.”  His gaze slid from my face to the guy watching us from across the hallway.  “Do I know you?”

“You did.”

I gestured grandly in his direction.  “Heero Yuy.  Also known as the sonuvabitch who stabbed you yesterday.”

Trowa didn’t let go of my hand, but that same lockdown that had happened in Dorothy’s office made an appearance and I had to wonder if this was Trowa’s old self rising up from the depths of his subconscious or wherever the hell past memories and habits went when a fey bought the farm.

“Why a feykin?” Trowa wanted to know.

Heero said, “So you do remember it.  You should.  You created it.”

Trowa stiffened and so did I.  Jesus.  What kind of person had he been?  The creator of an instrument that caused excruciating pain in a fey.  Caused a wound that Trowa – and perhaps _only_ Trowa – could heal quickly.  It was a hell of a way to interrogate someone.  My God.

I swallowed thickly and looked at Trowa.  He turned and looked at me.

I didn’t let go of his hand.

When it became clear that I had no intention of putting distance between us, he exhaled, and I realized he’d been holding his breath, waiting for my verdict.  My verdict.  Holy shit.  Despite what I’d said about no human having the right to judge his past, he had been waiting with bated breath for my reaction.  Trowa would have let me condemn him for something he couldn’t remember doing and had no memory of why he’d done it or for what ends.

No one should have that power over him.

I turned back to Heero and glared at the satisfied look in his eyes.  _Yeah, asshole, I accept him just as he is.  Wipe the smug grin off your face._   “You said you had a message for him,” I prompted.

“Yes.  Quatre is coming for you.”

“Quatre?”  Trowa didn’t recognize this name, either.

“He is your most influential ally and your greatest enemy.  If you accept what he offers, do so very carefully.”

“I am always careful,” Trowa retorted stiffly.

Heero’s brows lifted as he looked at me and then admired the scar on Trowa’s cheek.  “It’s good you’ve always been quick to learn from your mistakes.”

Trowa’s eyes narrowed.  “It wasn’t a mistake.  Duo was my choice.”

I flashed back to the meeting with Doktor S and Trowa’s anger at the implication that he’d been lucky in finding me.  Given what I’d recently learned about fey, I could make a guess as to why the idea of luck – and, for that matter, mistakes – would be a sore point.  Fey didn’t commit to things if there was a high risk involved… except in my case?  Trowa had kissed me – sworn himself to me – and then let me go, not knowing if he’d ever see me again.  That made no sense… no _fey_ sense, anyway.  What was I missing here?

“There are advantages to accepting Quatre’s assistance,” Heero said and I jerked back into the present moment and the very real situation we were in.  “But you have other friends.  Friends who will fight if you require it of us.”

“Us?” Trowa echoed.

Heero nodded.  “Times have been changing.  Ever since Treize’s manipulation and the deaths of the council members.”

My boyfriend shook his head.  “What council?”

“Every leader who had an interest in fair trade for _both_ sides.  They are all dead because of me.  You were there as well; given your reputation, I’m sure many believe you did it.”

Yet another “crime” that Chang probably had tucked away in his fucking archive, indexed under Trowa’s severed head.

Heero continued, “But when Noventa died, the movement didn’t stop.  It won’t stop.  There are too many of us who want – _need_ – change.  The old ways are no longer acceptable.”

Holy shit.  Was he talking about some kind of resistance?

“I cannot tell you more at this time because Quatre will ask, and he is still the most skilled of us at sensing falsehoods, but you need to see that there are other options.  So answer him truthfully if you like – tell him we met and I spoke to you of our cause, but I have not told you enough for you to form an opinion one way or the other.”

Trowa frowned.  “You needn’t spell it out for me.”

A grin of the shit-eating variety curved Yuy’s lips.  “Perhaps I enjoy being the one to give _you_ instructions for a change.”

As a younger brother, I could relate to that.  Any chance to show Solo up was my jam.

A squeal and clatter heralded the opening of the door down the hall.  Running footsteps in what sounded like women’s shoes clicked toward us followed by an officious caution, “Please wait for me, Miss Noventa!”

She didn’t.  A young blonde woman skidded to a halt in front of Heero, taking his hands and turning the right one over to eye the green bloodstain.  “Are you hurt?” she asked and I almost laughed.  Goddamn, she sounded just like me where Trowa was concerned.

“No,” Heero told her softly, his entire body relaxing in her presence and welcoming her touch with a posture that I’d been seeing a lot of over the last few days.  Trowa’s thumb rubbed over the back of my hand and I knew what he was telling me: Heero Yuy and Miss Noventa were companions.

She dug into her purse for a travel-sized pack of wet wipes and started cleaning my fey lover’s blood off of Heero’s arm.  The officer passed her and moved to unlock the door.  In that moment, she flicked her fingers and a business card slid across the floor and into our cell.  Solo carefully stepped on it to conceal it from view.

Heero emerged from his cell and wrapped an arm around his girl’s waist.  “Sylvia?” he prompted almost shyly.

She leaned in and kissed him.  On the lips.  In full view of us.  “Did you tell these three the truth today?” she quietly asked with a nod in our direction.

“Yes.  I gave them the truth as I know it and in good faith.  No payment is required,” he swore, and then, with a small nod to us, Heero draped his arm proprietarily around Sylvia’s shoulders and they left the lockup.

Well.  OK, then.  Wasn’t that interesting?

The officer started heading back the way he’d come.  Solo sank down as if to fiddle with the laces on his shoes and palmed Sylvia’s business card, slipping it into his jeans pocket.

I wanted to ask Trowa what had happened with Inspector Une, but before I could, I heard a second pair of gotta-be-feminine footsteps.  “I’d like to speak with my clients,” a woman informed the officer.  She appeared in our line of sight just as she listed, “Trowa Barton, Duo Maxwell, and Solo Maxwell.”

She regarded us and I stared back.  She was tall and athletic-looking with very short black hair and a military posture.  “Lucrezia Noin,” she introduced herself, reaching forward to shake our hands through the bars, noticing when Trowa was reluctant to release mine and quick to capture it again.

We were shown to a meeting room… or an interrogation room, I guess.  One table, five folding chairs.  I hesitated to take a seat.  Attorney Noin, on the other hand, chose the seat furthest from the door and claimed the neighboring chair for her briefcase.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable, sirs.”

If I took her literally, then I’d be snuggling on Trowa’s lap and nuzzling his hair.  Jesus, I wanted that moment.  That just-us moment.  When the fuck were we gonna be allowed to just be together, Goddamn it?

With a cocky grin, Solo sat.  I followed with a gusty sigh.  Trowa claimed the third seat in silence, but then obnoxiously scraped and clattered it closer to mine.

“I have good news,” Ms. Noin said, “I can guarantee that the charges against you will be dismissed if you accept my representation.”

“And what’s that gonna cost us?” I asked, tired of this bullshit, so fucking tired.

She smiled and pulled a file out from her briefcase and removed three sheets of paper before passing one to each of us.  It was a contract.  I read mine thoroughly, looking for the catch, the fine print, the part where I was tacitly agreeing to forfeit my soul.  But, however many times I read it, the meaning was the same.  Some guy named Quatre Winner was offering to get us released from jail, offering us the means to return to Boston, and asked only for us to accept his invitation to dinner at his Boston residence where he wished to discuss a possible partnership.

A possible partnership.  _Possible._   That seemed to be the key word to me.

But why would he do all of this for such a small return?  Just one dinner.  The date was listed right there in black and white.  I compared my contract with Trowa’s and then leaned over to take a peek at Solo’s.  They were all the same.  Same favors, same date, same everything.

“Huddle, guys,” I invited and Solo obligingly twisted around and scooted closer.  Trowa mirrored his pose.

“Pros are obvious,” Solo murmured.  “Trowa?  You see or sense anything we need to watch out for?”

“No,” he replied after a moment of careful consideration.  “Given who we are, simply bringing us into his territory may be well worth the effort.  We will be required to accept the dinner invitation and listen to what he has to say.  However, the moment it concludes…”

“Right,” I mused.  This wasn’t the big picture, the whole pano-fucking-rama.  We were gonna have to anticipate Winner’s next move and counter it.  If we didn’t, then Winner was gonna tighten his grip on us and it’d be that much harder to wiggle free.  “What do you think?” I asked Trowa.  “Are you good with this?  With me an’ Solo agreeing to it?”

He nodded.  “I think we need to meet this Quatre Winner.  These terms are acceptable.”

I looked up and Ms. Noin was already holding out a pen.  At her elbow were three passports.  We signed.

“Wait here,” she requested, standing.

“Are you even gonna tell us what the charges are?”

She smiled.  “You know as well as I do that they are simply a means to an end.”  I tensed in order to counter the shiver racing down my spine.  “You will be airborne within three hours, sirs.”

We were.

As we roared skyward, I ran my hands – my unhandcuffed hands – over the leather upholstery of the luxurious reclining seats and marveled.  Solo probably thought I was admiring the comfort of Quatre Winner’s private jet; I wasn’t.  I was remembering something Chang had said— _“You cannot play chess with a fey and expect to win.”_

No shit, Sherlock.  Holy fuck.  Someone had put an arrest warrant out on us to get us outta Chinatown and out from under the creepy protection of Chang’s clan.  I was unsure if that had been Quatre Winner’s move or someone else’s, but it was certain that Quatre Winner had been eager to offer the very thing we’d been seeking: a way to Boston for all three of us.

But I wondered about Heero Yuy.  Where did he fit into all of this?  The attack on the train had to’ve been intentional and well-timed.  Had he expected Chang to offer us hospitality?  Did he know about the archive?  Had he hoped we’d see it?  Learn about the fey and their human enemies?  Or had he simply been trying to jog Trowa’s memory with the use of that fucking fey blade?  And then the son of a bitch had gotten himself arrested for shoplifting so that he could warn us about Winner and round off the Fey 101 lecture with tantalizing hints about a resistance movement?

Jesus.  How could I even begin to sort through all of this?

As Solo was yawning and stretching out in the pair of seats facing mine and Trowa’s, clearly settling in for a nap, I leaned my head onto Trowa’s shoulder and closed my eyes.  Damn, I was tired.  Trowa leaned his head against mine, his thumb brushing over my hand which he’d tugged onto his thigh and didn’t seem inclined to let go any time soon.

I woke to a kick to my boots that had me sitting up with a grunt, upsetting Trowa’s careful balance and he just about knocked his head against the window.

“What the hell was that for, you jerk?” I grouched at Solo, the Brother Boot Kicker.

“Watching you drool was grossing me out.”

“Up yours.”

“If there’s no lube available, I guess it’ll do.”

I grimaced.  “Ew.  Excuse me while I purge that mental image.”  I gave Trowa’s shoulder a squeeze as I stood and headed for the lavatory. 

I took my sweet time washing up.  Hell, why not?  The lav was like a frickin’ spa.  There was a full-sized sink and every kind of soap and skin treatment you could ask for – and a couple I hadn’t even known existed (cuticle cream?  really??) – so I helped myself to a new toothbrush, some eye drops, a razor and a shave.  By the time I patted my face dry with a fluffy blue towel, I was definitely feeling almost human again.

Emerging from the wonders of Super Ultra First Class, I wondered if there was gonna be a meal service in the near future or if I could just bum something from the—

“—what you don’t understand, Trowa.  Humans have families.  Friends.  Our parents had just been killed.  Duo and I only had each other.  If you’d taken him away, he’d have missed me.  He’d have been miserable.”

I realized I was hovering in the hallway beside the lavatory door, listening to Solo quietly but firmly lecture my boyfriend.  My fey boyfriend who had initially planned on absconding with me to the fey realm.

Before I could figure out if this was the time to butt into the conversation, Trowa offered, “I don’t want to make Duo sad.  Then or now.”

“I know you don’t.  That’s why I want you to understand how we’re different from fey.  Do you have any family?  A mother?  Father?  Brothers or sisters?”

“No.  We are each of us alone.”

Solo sighed.  “That’s a sorry way to be, but it doesn’t change the fact that you could have destroyed Duo.”

“I—I can understand why you would think that I wanted—but no.  I would not have touched him even if he’d come to the dell with me.”

“You’re gonna have to do better than that, Trowa.  Convince me.”

My lover was silent for nearly a minute and I still couldn’t move.  Maybe because I wanted to hear this, too.  Needed to hear it.

“I’d seen fey with companions.  There are some in the dell at Nith.  I—I wanted that for myself.  But, in order to acquire – I, uh, apologize – _find_ a companion, a fey has to leave fey lands.  Only the masters can give permission for that, and anyone who wishes to speak with them must approach one of their guardians.  I was new.  Young.  I believed I had nothing to offer in exchange for an audience with the masters except myself.  So I chose the guardian I believed I would have the best chance of… satisfying.”

Trowa took a slow, shuddering breath.  “It—it was n-nearly unendurable.  If I had known beforehand what the price would be, I would never have—never would have—I would have waited until I could offer something—anything else.”

Horror washed-splashed-crashed over me.  Imagining Trowa—my Trowa being used and hurt—I couldn’t stomach it—the very thought was a deluge of filth and gore in my gullet—sickening and enraging and—

I didn’t sob, but my entire body jerked, hiccupping in pain as if I had.  My whole being sobbed.  My soul _was_ sobbing.  I clamped my hands over my mouth to silence my roar of rage and denial.

“Hey,” Solo murmured and I heard him shift against the seat.  “C’mere, Tro.  It’s OK, kiddo.”

The sound of fabric sliding against leather and then the creak of weight resettling reached my ears.  “Please don’t tell Duo.”

“Even if he knew, it wouldn’t change anything.  Except make him go homicidal on the piece of shit who hurt you.  That would be a thing.  For sure.”

Trowa hiccupped.  Oh, God I _ached_ to go to him, but I just couldn’t get my feet to move.

“It was a fey bargain,” Trowa said and it wasn’t until I heard his next words that I realized he was objecting to the idea of me avenging him, “I was given an audience with the masters.  They gave me a task to perform in exchange for the opportunity to choose a companion.  I just… I didn’t think I wanted it anymore.  Didn’t think it was possible for me to ever want that.”

After a moment, my brother gently prompted, “And then you met Duo?”

“Yes.  My friend.  He is… he’s so…”

“Yeah,” Solo agreed.  “He’s pretty damn spectacular.”

“I just wanted a friend, Solo.  That was all I wanted.”

“Oh, Jesus, Tro.  OK, I get it.”

OK, _now._   I should make my entrance now.  Move, feet, move!

“But, just answer me one more thing: how come you kissed him in the first place?” Solo murmured.

“The masters wanted him and I was afraid.  If they captured him again, they’d—well, at the time, I thought they wanted to sacrifice him.  I kissed him so that, if he were ever taken to fey lands, I’d know it.  Feel it.  I’d be able to find him and, I don’t know what I thought I’d be able to do against the masters, but I’d—do something.”  He choked softly.  “But then they banished me.  I was powerless—useless—and they _still_ wanted Duo.  And there was only one chance that I could help him, free him once and for all.  When he returned, I took it.”

Yes, he had.  After twelve years of searing agony – not just from burning shame but also from dread as he’d waited for the day when he’d feel my presence somewhere in fey lands, the lands from which he’d been banished, and he’d be completely unable to do a damn thing about it.  Just claw at the mossy earth in the center of the ring of flowers as I was killed.  Had that been his nightmare?  For twelve years?

Oh God.  Just—just— _oh God._

I finally had an inkling of all the things Trowa had given and risked and lost for me.  I had wondered why he’d kissed me – made me his companion – before letting me go, and now I had the answer: he’d done it because the masters had wanted me.  He’d connected us just in case I was captured someday.  He’d had every intention of being there with me from that moment onward.  If only he hadn’t been banished, he would have.  He would have come for me.  And, as inexperienced in dealing with his own people as he’d been, he probably would have been killed because of it.  Killed… or worse.

Jesus.  No wonder he’d been furious at the suggestion that he’d been lucky or that he’d made a mistake.  I had been _chosen._   In the deepest sense of the word.

“Solo,” Trowa ordered, his voice suddenly harsh and firm, “you will not to tell Duo these things.”

“Noooo, I won’t, but you should.”

“Why?”

“Because he deserves to know what kind of person you are.  And you deserve a… companion who respects your strength.”

There was a pause.

“Yeah,” Solo continued, possibly in response to a look from my boyfriend – my incredible lover and faithful friend.  “Yeah, I trust that you’ve told me the truth.”

Again, he asked, “Why?”

“Because I’ve explained to you what it means to be brothers.  And because if you lied to me, it would hurt Duo.”

Trowa released a breath.  “Yes.  I swear to you that what we have spoken of here today was, for my part, the truth.”

“For my part, too, Trowa.  Mine, too.”

I leaned back against the wall and just… I needed a moment.  One more moment.

“I should tell Duo these things?” Trowa checked.

“When you are ready, there is no reason why you shouldn’t.”

“I understand.”

So did I.  So did I.  And I thanked God I’d overheard it first because holy hell I could have fucked this up if he’d suddenly bombed me with it.  I knew myself well enough to see how it would have played out: my rage and fury and anguish and how Trowa would have reacted to it… again.

Even now, Trowa seemed to believe that I had the power to reject him.  I nearly cringed at the memory of his stuttered plea, _“Please d-don’t s-send me away.”_

At some point in the near future, I was gonna have to ask him what a guy had to do to give his fey companion a little relationship security.

I was also gonna find out who that shithead guardian was and _destroy him._

“OK, Tro-bro, you’re cuttin’ off the circulation to my arm.  ‘Sides, li’l D’s had enough damn toilet time.”

“I apologize—”

“No, don’t apologize.  You’ve done nothing wrong.  Trust me, I will be the first to clue you in if you do.”

I ducked back into the lavatory to blow my nose and splash some cold water on my face.  Solo banged on the door just as I was squeezing more eye drops into my reddened eyes.

“Open the hell up or I’m gonna piss in your apple juice, nerd.”

“The door’s not locked, asshole.”

He pushed it open, took one look at my face, and apparently decided he didn’t have to take a leak so damn bad after all.

“Aw, shit, bro,” he sighed, pulling me into his arms for another one of his big brother bear hugs.

I took a deep breath and hugged him back.  “It’s—it’s OK.  It’s better I find out this way.  So I don’t lose my shit and freak him out if he, y’know, decides to say somethin’ later.”

Solo rubbed my shoulder.  I’d never told my brother – or anyone for that matter – but he was a pro at hugs.  They were rare, but so awesome.

Solo himself, on the other hand—

He let out a juicy fart and I got the hell outta there before the reek hit me, slamming the door shut on his fucking chortling.  I headed back to the cabin and spotted Trowa sitting in the seat beside Solo’s, staring out at the sea of clouds.

“Was the view boring ya, babe?” I teased.

He looked up as I slid onto his lap, cupped his face, and kissed his lips.  His hands grabbed my hips and his grip was stronger than I’d ever felt it.

“I missed you, missed this with you,” I confessed on a minty breath, kissing him again and again.

When I pulled back, he looked into my reddened eyes and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Solo’s fault.  I was puttin’ eye drops in – the dry air in here an’ all – when he banged on the door and—”  I mimed a close encounter with the plastic nozzle.

Trowa didn’t ask how I managed to end up with _two_ puffy eyes; he just pulled me closer for another kiss.  A deep kiss.  Hungry and seeking.  I gripped the back of his neck with my left hand and tunneled my fingers into his hair, pulling his bangs out of the way with my right.  His hands moved to my ass.  Squeezed.  I groaned, feeling myself harden.  Hell, even my nipples stiffened.

I had to pull back before hot-n-bothered turned into a porn exhibition.

“I cannot wait to show you my room,” I told him.

“I cannot wait to kiss you there.”

The heat in his gaze gave me goosebumps.  “God, baby, you burn me up.”

“You look fine to me,” he teased and the words struck a chord in my memory.

I chuckled, easing off of his lap and into the seat across from his; I’d said the same thing to him in the forest at Caerlaverock as I’d ogled his bare chest.

So much had happened since.  And there was even more that I still didn’t know about.  For instance: “What did that Inspector Une woman want with you?”

Trowa leaned back, stretched his feet out toward mine, and tilted the toe of one shoe against my ankle.  “She works for Treize.”

“He’s alive?”

“So she says.  He wants to meet.  She extended his offer.”

I thought that over, followed the implications and possibilities.  “You didn’t give her an answer.”

He shook his head.  “I wouldn’t.  Not without speaking to you first.”

“Is that a fey thing?  Companion thing, I mean?  You can’t or…?”

“I _wouldn’t,”_ he insisted, rubbing the tread of his sneaker against my boot.  “I don’t misspeak often, Duo.”

Yeah, OK.  I could take him at his word.  “So, how come you – we – accepted Winner’s offer and not Treize’s?”

“An instinct,” he answered with a contemplative scowl.  “And also, Boston is where you want to be.”

I bumped his shoes back.  “Yeah.  There’s that.  What does Treize want from you?”

“Likely the same thing that Winner wants,” he answered with a shrug.  “A leader for his army.  A healer who can attract wandering fey without a dell to join his cause.”

My mind filled with flashes and images of battles past.  Had there been blades or bullets?  Green blood – droplets and splatters across Trowa’s face as he’d shouted commands to his troops over the roaring chaos.  I squashed a shiver.  I asked him, “What do you want?”

He smiled.  Damn, he looked so young and shy.  “You.”

I swallowed thickly.  “If you wanna add anything to that list, you just lemme know, K, babe?”

He nodded and resumed his impromptu game of “bootsie.”

Damn, but he was charming.  “Trowa Barton, are you flirting with my shoes?”

“With what’s in them.”

I barked out a laugh, but then sobered.  “Hey, where’d Une get your last name from?  Barton?”

“It’s a fey custom.  When extending an invitation to a recently exiled or escaped fey, a new identity is offered for the purpose of enabling the fey to travel there.  The name is usually based on the location of the fey host or hostess, changing as few letters as possible so that it conforms to commonly accepted human last names.”

“So… you’re using the name that Quatre Winner offered you.”

He nodded and I wondered how Une had known about it.  That was the name she’d arrested him under, after all, and what were the odds that two rival fey from different dells would come up with the same last name for their query?  Did Treize and Winner have something going on behind the scenes?

Hmm.  Something to keep in mind for the future.

“Do you like it?  The name?”

“Not especially.”

“Well, you don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it, right?”

He arched a brow at me.  “Do you have any suggestions?”

My mouth dried up as the most obvious alternative teetered on the tip of my suddenly swollen tongue.  I scrambled for something – anything – else.  But I had nuthin’.

Trowa knocked his shoes against mine again.  My lips quirked and I knocked back.

Solo returned to find Trowa and I engaged in a foot war.  Tro was at a disadvantage with his canvas sneakers pitted against my boots, but I’d given myself the handicap of having to keep one edge of the tread on the carpet at all times.

“Jesus Christ, how old are you two?” my brother griped, flopping down into the seat beside Trowa and giving my ankle a kick.

“Not as old as you, geezer,” I jeered and suddenly it was two-against-me.

The flight attendant interrupted our battle with the offer of food.  Our enthusiasm probably scared her because she just about sprinted for the galley to get our dinners.  Trowa excused himself to use the bathroom and I shouted in his wake, “If there’s a mess in there, it’s all Solo’s!”

My brother sat forward to punch me in the arm.

“Ow!  What the hell was that for, dirt-brain?” I complained.

The lav door snicked shut on Trowa’s soft chuckle.

The smile slid off of my face as I looked at Solo.  He looked at me.  “I’m only gonna tell you this once, and I’ll deny it if you ever bring it up, but… you’re the best damn brother in the universe.”

He smirked.  “I got motivation, my bro.”

I rolled my eyes.  “But, OK, how long were you waiting to ambush Tro like that?”

“Well,” he drawled, “your comment to Yuy about the condoms was, uh, worrying.”

“Did you miss the part about Tro being a healer?”

“Did _you_ miss the part about him not having magic anymore?”

Oh.  Right.  But… “I think he and I… I think we share it.  Somehow.  Because—that feykin wound?  He used magic from me to heal as fast as he did.”

Solo ran a hand through his hair.  “Fuck.  Of course this gets more complicated.”

Complicated did not even begin to describe the world of the fey.

I suspected it didn’t do justice to Quatre Winner, either.

“Welcome to my home,” the young, blonde man enthused, extending a hand to each of us in turn, his blue eyes sparkling with genuine pleasure.

Jesus fried a chicken.  Our savior was a fucking cherub.

“Please come in!  What would you like to drink?  As per our contract, I extend my hospitality in good faith in exchange for your company this evening.”

Still, I hesitated.  So did Solo.

“Water will suffice,” Trowa replied, casting a gaze over the opulent décor of the house – hell, it was a fuckin’ mansion – that we’d entered.

“Of course!”

A flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye drew my attention to a hovering attendant who was probably darting off to pass our orders on to the kitchen staff. 

“How was the flight?” Quatre wanted to know.  “I hope the jet was comfortable.  Oh, would you care to leave your things with my staff?”  He gestured to a small luggage rack in the corner of the foyer; it was just large enough to accommodate our backpacks and Tro’s damn UNIQLO bag, all of which had been collected under the police arrest warrant and returned to us when we’d been released. 

A butler stepped forward, gloved hands outstretched.

“Thanks, but we’re good,” Solo replied, his hand tightening on the shoulder strap.

“Suit yourself.  Duo, I see you’ve noticed the Barton portrait.”

I suppose I had.  It was hard not to notice the massive canvas in its gilded frame.  The damn thing dominated the whole fucking entryway.  I didn’t recognize any of the faces: an older man of about fifty, a blonde woman and blonde man both in their thirties, and a girl of about eight or ten with short, flaming red hair.

“The previous occupants,” Quatre volunteered.  “The Bartons of Boston.  Lovely symmetry, isn’t it?  Barton.  Boston.”

And, apparently, the inspiration for the surname on Trowa’s passport.

“Huh,” I said, honestly unable to generate more of a response.

Quatre didn’t seem to mind my lack of verbal repartee.  He led us to the dining room where servers pulled out our seats for us and placed platters of delicacies at our place settings.  Our host’s friendly gaze moved from me to Trowa, measuring what I felt was an uncomfortably large space between our chairs.  Perhaps Quatre was remembering the way Trowa’s hand had been resting on my waist in the foyer.  He grinned, “It’s so good to see you again, my friend.”

“Is it?  Forgive me if I’ve misplaced the memory of our acquaintance.”

Quatre gave a theatrical wince.  “Yes, well, that’s always a risk when one is killed, isn’t it?  But I’d say you’ve done well for yourself despite what many consider to be a disadvantage.”

“You don’t?”

“It really depends on a great many factors, doesn’t it?  But please, let us eat before we discuss strategy.  I’m starving!”

The food was, hell, it was amazing.  It was also an education in what foods Trowa preferred.  Since there were so damn many to choose from, I got to see what he liked and what he left untouched.  Thin slices of raw beef marinated in wasabi and then dipped in raw egg yolk seemed to be a favorite.  Interesting, but I preferred my not-so-rare fillet mignon.

“How long have you been in Boston, Quatre?” Solo asked and I let him take conversational point.

As Quatre described his accomplishments as a city patron and listed all of the things about Boston that tickled him pinker than he already was, I started to get a read on the guy.  Started to get a read on fey in general.  Heero had been blunt and cautious, but Quatre oozed confidence and benevolence.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was the more dangerous.

“Trowa, I don’t suppose Heero managed to track you down?  You do remember _him,_ don’t you?”

“No, I don’t, but yes, we spoke.  As I’m sure you’re aware.”

Quatre gave us a sheepish grin.  “Of course.  And he told you that I’m a reader.”

“He told me that there would be no point in attempting to deceive you.”

Our host pouted.  “What a stick-in-the-mud!  Ah, well.  What can one expect from a grudge.”

“Excuse me,” I interjected.  “A grudge?”

Quatre obligingly explained, “A fey whose talents lie in…”  He gestured aimlessly, groping for the words.  “…obstinate, immovable stubbornness.  I assume he mentioned his cause to you?”

Trowa admitted, “Briefly.  What do you know of it?”

“Oh, not much.  Grudges are notoriously tight-lipped.  Still, if he gains further support, it could be an interesting opportunity.”

An interesting opportunity.  What other opportunities was Quatre Winner interested in?  For instance, “Like having the three of us close by?  In _your_ city?” I inquired, playing on his clearly territorial feelings for Boston.

“Yes,” he chimed happily.  “And I do hope you’ll stay.  Was the scholarship sufficient, Duo?  I’d be happy to offer further assistance if you need anything at all.”

My blood turned to ice.  Solo’s fork skidded and screeched across the fine china of his plate.

Quatre smiled and answered what would have been our next question.  “Yes, I knew both of you were the grandsons of Angus Maxwell, the laird of Caerlaverock.”  He looked at Solo.  “It was too bad you turned down the scholarship that my foundation extended to you.  Perhaps you’ll let me know if you change your mind about school?”

I bit back the hot retort that was burning my tongue.  Solo had gotten a job right after graduation so he could support us, so he could be my legal guardian.  I hated that he’d had to give up on university for me, and I’d sworn to study hard, get a scholarship, and pay him back for it someday.  Maybe help him open up a dojo of his own.  He was damn good at that martial arts stuff.  But this—Quatre’s offers and interference—was turning my stomach.

While the manipulations were still seeping outta the woodwork.  I checked, “When did you come to Boston, again?”

“A little over twelve years ago,” he admitted.

“And before that?”

“Chicago.”

“And that?”

“Los Angeles.”

“And how many Maxwells met with untimely deaths at each place?”

Quatre smiled, charmed by my accusation.  “Quite an unfortunate few!” he exclaimed in a tone usually reserved for offering congratulations.  He glanced from me to Solo and quickly concealed his glee, confiding accusingly, “You Caerlaverock Maxwells were rather difficult to find.”

I clutched the steak knife in my hand.

“I am very sorry for your losses,” Quatre continued apologetically and I could almost believe that he _was_ sorry.  But of course he wasn’t.  He was mimicking human emotions the way some people tried on hats.  He offered his pseudo-regrets, “And I understand that this is something that we may not be able to overcome on a personal level, but please don’t refuse a very good business opportunity because of it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Solo exploded.  “You killed our parents and now you wanna partner up?”

“Switch that around,” Quatre advised, doodling in the air with his manicured fingers.  “I wanted a partnership with the Maxwells of Caerlaverock _and so_ I tasked someone who owes me a favor with testing the familial connections between the laird and both of you.”

I forced yet another challenge through my gritted teeth, “Is that why you had Trowa killed?”

Beside me, my lover froze, either because I’d just blindsided him or because he was objecting to my blunt approach.

Quatre giggled.  Fucking _giggled._   “My goodness!  You _are_ a thing, aren’t you!  Impressive.  And correct.”  Quatre glanced at Trowa, as contrite as a fucking southern belle who’d just dropped her lace handkerchief.  “I did arrange for your death.  It gained me this dell, in fact.”  He gestured to the magnificent residence around us and the city beyond.  “It gave _me_ a sanctuary to offer _you_ when you acquired the Sicarian… or, failing that, the trust of the Maxwell brothers.”

“So it was you who told the masters of Nith that I’d been killed.”

“The precise moment!” he proudly acknowledged.  “They resurrected you with perfect timing.  _And_ it was rather fortuitous that you requested an audience with them so speedily as we needed you to go forth and draw one or both of the Maxwell boys into the dell before the summer ended.  It really had to be you, so new and innocent – that can’t be faked, you know.  Human children can sense these things.”

I was so furious – so fucking furious – that I could barely stand it.  My skull was buzzing.  My mouth tasted like blood.  Every muscle in my body clenched, cramped, and ached.

“You know, Trowa,” Quatre began, “Zechs still—”

“Do not speak of my bargain with him ever again.”  Trowa’s quiet command echoed.  Low and dangerous.  A lion stalking the room.

The blonde sociopath lifted his hands in surrender.  “I was merely attempting to compliment you, but you are correct.  We’ve already arrived at the dessert course and I’ve yet to outline the opportunity I invited you all here to discuss.”

“By all means,” Solo invited in a tone he normally used to suggest that someone eat shit and die.

_But, yes, Quatre, do tell us so that we’ll have yet another reason to turn you over to Chang and his tender mercies._

“It’s quite simple really,” Quatre assured us as the plates from our half-finished fourth course were removed and a painstakingly arranged work of dessert art took its place.  “I offer you protection and financial endorsement within the boundaries of my territory and you – Solo and Duo Maxwell – will turn over the Sicarian to me.  Trowa, I would consider it a personal favor if you would give serious thought to accepting your former post as general here for the Boston Dell.”

“I no longer have magic of my own,” Trowa reminded him.  “You saw to that.”

“Yes, the punishment was quite severe.  It needed to be.  You were far too dangerous to the masters.  It was only a matter of time before they found an excuse – or failing that, an opportunity – to, ah, dial down your abilities.  But only the four of us and the Nith masters are currently aware of this.  Let’s keep it that way for the time being.”

How many ways could I not-kill this asshole?  Hell, Chang probably had a second archive filled with nothing but detailed instructions on the subject.

Before I could launch myself over the table and do something really fucking violent, Solo informed our host, “We don’t have possession of the artifact you’re looking for.”

“Oh, I know,” he assured us.  “But I’m willing to invest in the possibility that it will eventually cross your path.  So, what do you say?  Do we have a bargain?  My protection and patronage in exchange for the Sicarian and safety from the other dells and fey hunters.”

None of us moved a single inch.  The grandfather clock against the wall ticked and tocked loudly as our fancy, sculpted ice cream melted into a puddle that soaked the lower layer of Black Forest cake on our plates.

“You won’t get a better offer, sirs,” Quatre informed us.

I took a deep breath.  “How about we give you one?”

“Duo!” Solo hissed.

Trowa’s hand shot out to grip my arm.

I stared hard at Quatre, who leaned forward eagerly.  “Yes, Duo Maxwell?  What are you offering?”

“I am offering you convenience,” I began, choosing my words very, very carefully.  “Solo, Trowa, and I will reside in or near Boston for as long as we want to stay here.  This is what I am offering to you.  What I require from you is that you stay the hell away from us.”

“That’s not much of a bargain,” Quatre objected, amused by my novice attempt.

But I knew it wasn’t as novice as he wanted me to think, and I was about to prove it.  “We don’t need anything further from you.”

I gestured to the clock.  It was ten minutes to midnight.  “The day and dinner we agreed to in exchange for your assistance in coming to Boston is nearly over.  All three of us are perfectly happy to walk out of this room and your home and get on with our lives.”  I didn’t have to look at either Solo or Trowa to know that this was true.

I continued, “We know what our value is, and even if you tell the other dells that Trowa isn’t the healer he used to be, there’s still me and my brother to consider.  What dell wouldn’t welcome us with open arms if they thought it would give them the chance to be the first to acquire the Sicarian?  What fey hunter wouldn’t swear allegiance to us if it meant they’d get a crack at destroying fey?”

I arched a brow and brought it down the homestretch.  “The truth is, Quatre Winner, we aren’t in danger from attack.  You’re just trying to make us think we are.  So, if you want us here, in your territory, then you will be the one offering _us_ favors to give us incentives to stay.”

With a nod to the clock presiding over the evening, I reminded him of the deadline he’d chosen, “You have until midnight to agree to do things our way.”

Solo was gaping at me.

Trowa’s hand on my arm had loosened with shock.

I was so owning this.  Bhoo yeah.

The look on Quatre’s face proved it.  There was no smile.  No sparkle.  He regarded me in silence and I knew what this was.  He was sizing me up as an opponent, as a rival, as a threat.

I picked up my dessert spoon and scooped up a slice of cold, wet cake.  It was pretty good.  The taste of victory _and_ the cake.  Yes, I was having my cake and eating it, too.  An’ there wasn’t a Goddamn thing Quatre could do to stop me short of a physical attack, but I was betting that Quatre wasn’t that kind of guy.  Trowa, Solo, and I were perfectly safe for the moment—the more we each had to lose, the easier it would be to manipulate us.  I was confident that Quatre would come to this conclusion and choose to bide his time rather than push the issue further tonight.

“My compliments to your chef,” I told him with a happy grin.

“Thank you,” he replied cordially, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as his mouth curved into a smile.  “I misspoke earlier when I said you were merely impressive, Duo Maxwell.”

“Behave yourself and you might have the chance to learn just how true that is, Quatre Winner.”

He laughed, delighted.

If he hadn’t spent years killing off Maxwells – including my mom and dad – and orchestrating a scheme that resulted in the utterly callous brutalization of the fey who had been my friend and would one day become my lover, I might have actually liked the guy.  A little bit.

I braced myself against a shudder of revulsion and focused on the upside: as things stood now, I was perfectly happy to let him bleed financially – there was my scholarship for starters – at least until I could figure out a way to draw real blood.

If he sensed that I had every intention of turning his scheming fey ass over to Chang, he didn’t let on.

“Very well, Trowa, Duo Maxwell, Solo Maxwell.  We have a bargain.  Please enjoy the hospitality of Boston and, if you require anything, do not hesitate to let me know.  I welcome any opportunity to repay the debt I owe to the three of you.”

“In good faith,” I prompted him.

“In good faith,” he acquiesced gracefully.

I glanced at Trowa, who nodded.  I looked at Solo, who shrugged.  I looked at Quatre Winner and answered, “Agreed.”

When the clock chimed midnight, Quatre showed us out.  The limousine that had brought us directly from the airport was waiting, but we categorically refused to use it and the three of us walked through the gates of his estate on our own feet, toting our bags.  Solo hailed a cab and gave the driver our address.

We were going home.

Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should explain why I chose Zechs for the guardian that Trowa, um, negotiated with. Basically, I went back to that part in the series where Zechs challenges Heero to a one-on-one battle in Antarctica even though Heero is still recovering from the self-destruct-o show. For me, this is just such an underhanded and dastardly thing for Zechs to do. On top of all the other underhanded, dastardly things he does in the series. Sure, yes, maybe canon!Zechs had reasons. And yes, it’s possible that fey!Zechs had reasons for what he did in this fic… something may be going on here that Trowa was/is unaware of. In fact, I’m sure of it, but that will have to wait for another story.
> 
> If you took the time to read and enjoy this chapter, I hope you'll take the time to let me know what you liked about it. Here's another checklist if you'd like some prompts to springboard from:
> 
> Duo, aspiring husband...  
> Trowa, creator of the feykin blade...  
> Heero, fighter for the fey resistance...  
> Solo, THE BIG BROTHER OF EPIC...  
> Inspector Une, servant of Treize...  
> Lucrezia Noin, London-based lawyer for Quatre Winner...  
> Zechs, guardian of the Nith Dell master...  
> Quatre Winner, sociopathic master of the dell in Boston...
> 
> And of course, there's all the underhanded fey asshattery that comes to light:  
> Fake arrest warrant...  
> Dub-con fey bargain...  
> Maxwell-hunting...  
> Fey friend killing, maiming, and so forth... (like, srsly, how can you not be furious about all the shit that Trowa has been through?)
> 
> Right. So. There's plenty to discuss, yes? Oh, yeeeeeeeeeeees. (^_~)


	5. Fey and Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now all the real-life things will be sorted out because, hey, Maxwell men keep their promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music I wrote to: “Alive” by Sia
> 
> SMUT AHOY. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

I was so fucking excited about seeing the inside of our cramped apartment that I was sitting on the edge of my seat in the back of the taxi, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.

But it was so not anything like Christmas morning when Solo banged open the door and the stench of week-old garbage smacked all three of us square in the face.  “What the—?  Oh, _man!”_ I bitched.

“Jesus Christ, Duo!”

“What?”

“Whadya mean ‘what?’  _Somebody_ forgot to take the trash out before we left.”

“Hey, the second week of the month is _your_ job, moron.”

Trowa stood off to the side, fingers pinching his nose shut, as Solo and I sorted it out.  Loudly.  At one a.m.

Thank God our neighbors were sound sleepers.  Or taking advantage of the Friday nightlife.

Anyway, garbage exiled to the bin on the curb and windows opened, Solo sprinkled some Arm & Hammer into the empty kitchen trash can.  I lit a couple of emergency candles.  There, stench status: handled.

“Is there any point in offering to make up the sofa?” Solo asked, tiredly rubbing his eyes.

I quipped, “When in doubt, ask yourself, ‘Did Duo make me do this for any of my girlfriends?’”

“Oh, fuck off,” he mumbled, dragging his backpack down the hall to his room, but then paused and added, “quietly!”

I smirked as his door slammed shut.

But seriously, I was so damn tired there was just no way anything was gonna happen tonight.  “You wanna see my room?” I teased Tro with an eyebrow wiggle that demanded the last of my waning strength.

His lips quirked a beat later than they should have.  “I would like to sleep in it.  Perhaps actually _see_ it sometime in the morning?”

“It’s a date.”

Solo had bullied me into changing the sheets on my bed the morning we’d left for the airport and I was so damn glad I was able to offer Trowa a clean bed.  We dumped our clothes on the floor, slid between the sheets, and dive-bombed into Slumberland.

I opened my eyes some hours later when I heard the front door shut and smiled goofily at the expanse of bare skin in front of my nose.  I had an arm around Trowa's waist and waking up like this was the most perfect thing in the whole damn universe.  I was so tempted to run a hand over the scars on his back, wake him with butterfly kisses, and give him my first scratchy words of the day: “Good morning, baby.”

But I had to piss like you would not believe and that kinda ruined the moment.  I slipped outta bed, grabbed a pair of boxers and some flannel pants, and dashed across the hall to the bathroom.  A glance in the mirror revealed the unattractive fact that my hair should have been washed yesterday, so I emptied the tank and then went ahead and took a shower.

The place was still quiet by the time I made it out to living room and spotted the overflowing basket of laundry sitting by the front door.  The note on top was in Solo’s handwriting:

_Gone to the dojo and then work until 10 p.m.  Food in the kitchen.  Knock yourselves out.  LAUNDRY FIRST, ROMEO._

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Duo?”

I spun around and grinned at Trowa’s disheveled hair and the UNIQLO boxers he was wearing.

“Good morning, baby,” I morning-voiced, skipping over to him to give him a kiss on the lips.  “Solo’s left for the day and I got chores to do.  You hungry?”

He nodded and we raided the kitchen.

I made myself a bowl of cereal, claiming a green banana that had clearly been part of Solo’s morning market run.  Trowa found a tomato, cucumber, and some lettuce.  He made an appetizing salad but then cracked two raw eggs into it, sniffed his way through the condiments on the shelf in the fridge, and added a drizzle of soy sauce and a dash of wasabi.  Tossed it up and happily munched his way through the entire mixing bowl of it.

I guess we weren't gonna be one of those couples who ate off of each other’s plates.  Unless...

“You like sushi?” I asked him as I twisted my loose, damp hair up into a knot for the laundry trek.

“I don’t know.”

I did a little mental math to calculate my budget.  “Hmm.  I know a place.  We can hit it for lunch.”

I explained the morning’s laundry plan and asked if he wanted to add anything to the washables pile.  Once that was sorted, I gave him some options: “You can hang out here and get some more sleep or watch TV or…”

He reached out and twirled an escaped lock of my hair around his fingers.  “We’ll go together.”

It was almost a question, so I gave him another kiss.  “Sure, but you might get bored.”

“I’ll braid your hair.”

And that’s exactly what he did.  We trekked down a block to the laundromat, sorted, soaped, and slot-quartered two loads.  Then claimed a pair of hard plastic seats.  The entire wash cycle was basically Trowa combing and fluffing my hair with his fingers, drying the strands.  I ignored the infomercials on the decrepit TV hoisted up near the ceiling in the far corner and watched the traffic through the window for a while, but even that couldn’t distract from the fact that Trowa was the only person to run his fingers through my hair like this since…

_“Is there a little boy under this mop?  I can’t tell.”_

_“Murfk!  Daaad!”_

_“When your dad and I get home tonight, I’ll take you to get your hair cut.  OK, sweetie?”_

_“Aw, Mom.  Do we gotta?  I don’like haircuts.”_

_“Duo, my sweet, if your hair gets any longer, I’ll have to show you how to braid it.  Hair cut tonight, then we’ll get some ice cream.  How about that?”_

But there hadn’t been a haircut or ice cream.  Not that night or any night thereafter.  That morning had been the last I’d spent with my mom and dad.

And that was all Quatre Winner’s doing.

I asked, “D’you wanna get Winner back for all that shit he pulled as badly as I do?”

His fingers tightened in my hair, tugging sharply on the strands and his anger was comforting.  Vindicating. 

“Absolutely,” Trowa fumed on a snarl.  But then he surprised me by asking, “What time will Solo be home?”

“Um, after ten tonight, I guess.  Why?”

“We’ll discuss it then.”

“With Solo?” I checked.

Trowa hesitated.  “Isn’t that right?  For a family?”

I turned in my seat and looked at him.  “Yeah, Tro.  It is.  And we are.  We’re a family.”

He smiled a pleased little grin, proud of himself for getting it right.

I was pretty damn proud of him, too.

When the washing machine buzzers sounded, I transferred everything to four driers, fed in more coins, and returned to my seat so Trowa could get started braiding.  We drew some odd looks from other laundromat customers, sure.  Why wouldn’t we?  A “tattooed” guy lovingly braiding another guy’s waist-long hair.  Not a sight you see every day.  But I was kinda hoping Tro’s fascination with my hair was gonna be a thing: I had an image of him perched on the back of the sofa, braiding my hair while I read my latest homework assignment aloud for both of us.

Would he be interested in school?

And, shit, as a freshman, I was gonna be required to live in the campus dorms starting this fall, so… how often would I be seeing him?

I jogged my foot up and down as I chewed on that.  Tro probably thought I had to pee or something.

Following more buzzers, I taught Trowa how to fold clothes and then we trekked back home.  I put the basket of Solo’s clean laundry just inside his bedroom door, placing it right where he was sure to trip over it.  Then I dumped the rest of the folded laundry in my room.

“You hungry yet?” I asked Trowa and, when I got a companionable shrug, I decided now might be a good time to try sushi.  Before stomach-destroying hunger committed us to a specific restaurant whether Tro liked it or not.

I needn’t have worried, though.  Trowa was more enthusiastic about Boston rolls than he’d been over the 5-course meal at Winner’s the night before.  With the little bit of cash I still had on me, we stopped by a butcher shop and I let him pick out whatever he wanted for dinner.  “I’ll not-cook it for you,” I said with a smirk as I added his order to mine: a pair of sirloin steaks for Solo and myself.

Breakfast dishes and vacuuming still needed to get done, but I was ready for an afternoon siesta.  I crashed on the sofa and with a crook of my finger invited Tro to join me.  He readily slid onto the cushions and leaned over me, kissing me long and slow.  I kissed him back, pulling him closer so he could lie down alongside me and we could really take our time.

Ah, God, _yes._

I fully intended on spending the next two solid hours making out with him.

“Duo,” he panted softly about fifteen minutes into it.

“Hmm?”  I nuzzled his throat, teasing him with the tiniest, lightest kisses I was capable of.  My fingers curled into his hair, tugging gently.

“Why aren’t you—?”

“Why aren’t I…?” I prompted, but I kinda already knew where he was going with this.

“Our clothes are still on.”

“Yes, they are.”  I ran my hands over his back, on top of his shirt.

He leaned away to give me a narrow-eyed look.  “Why?”

I tilted my head back against the arm of the sofa and grinned up at him.  “Because they are.”  I shrugged.  “We can do this sometimes, can’t we?  Just be together?  Like this?  Or would you rather—?”

He pressed a finger to my lips.  “This is not what I expected from a companion, but it is… nice.”

“Nice is good,” I approved, cupping his cheek and brushing my thumb over his lips.

“And if I need more than nice?”

“Then we do something more than nice,” I answered.

“I would like that,” he purred.

“OK.  Tell you what—you lead this time.”

“Lead?”

I nodded.  “Anything you wanna do, baby.”

He stared at me.  Just held perfectly still and stared.  It unsettled me that I couldn’t read him at all.  Even his voice was devoid of emotion when he echoed, “Anything?”

“Um, pretty much.  I’ll let you know if I have any objections.”

I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.  “Agreed,” he rasped and I desperately wanted to know what was going on inside his head.

Trowa sat up and held out a hand to me.  His right one.  I placed my left in his grasp and our fingers curled into an unbreakable grip.  I looked up into his eyes as we both remembered that first moment of trust twelve years ago.

He stood up and reached out his other hand.  I accepted that offer as well and he levered me upright.  Just as I’d done for him no more than a week ago in the wake of our escape from the forest at Caerlaverock.

He led me to our bed and I was reminded of the other night in Chinatown when I’d struggled to make love to him the way he’d deserved to be made love to.  Cherished.  Treasured.

Still holding my hands, he climbed onto the bed and I crawled after him, closing the distance between us until we were close enough to kiss.

The tension was killing me.

I whispered, “Kiss me.”

He bridged the gap between us and our lips touched.  His mouth opened and his tongue slowly stroked my lower lip again and again until I groaned, inching even closer.  I would have wrapped my arms around his shoulders or buried my fingers in his hair or grabbed his hips and pulled myself closer, but he hadn’t released my hands yet.  Instead, he interlaced our fingers.

 _Be patient,_ I scolded myself.  I’d promised Trowa that this was his show and I was gonna keep that promise.

He nudged against my lips and I opened my mouth to him.  His soft groan met and melded with mine as his tongue slid inside, hot and luscious.  The fabric of my T-shirt was tickling my nipples and I shifted even closer to him, seeking friction.  His hips rocked against mine and – Jesus – it was such a fucking tease.  I could only stand so much before I had to pull back and beg, “Please, baby.  Just… please tell me what you want.  Tell me what we’re doing here.”

He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.  “I will have you,” he breathed hotly into my ear and I shivered, “inside me.”

My eyes flew open.  “Are you sure?  I mean, we can change it up if you want.”

He drew back and searched my expression.  Did he think I was lying?

He shook his head.  “I need you to show me how good it can be.  I need to learn this before I can show you the same.”

“But you already—I mean, wasn’t the last time kinda…?”

He pulled one of my hands to his face, brushing my fingertips along his jaw.  His lashes fluttered and he sighed with pleasure.  “You don’t feel what I feel.”

He was talking about bliss – the rush of physical joy that made him helpless to resist my touch.  “I sure as hell feel quite a lot, baby.”

“Including pain.”

The reminder froze me stock still and I thought of what he’d confessed to Solo on the plane.  I remembered his voice, rough and unsteady, as he’d stuttered, _“It-it was n-nearly unendurable.”_

Oh, God.  He was afraid he’d hurt me like he had been.

Words abandoned me.

“Do you trust me?” he wanted to know.

I would have snorted if he hadn’t been so painfully earnest.  “Yes.  I trust you.”

“Wait here,” he instructed and slid off of the bed.  He collected the lube from my backpack and selected a couple of freshly laundered towels, then he opened my closet door, pushing it wide so that I could see myself reflected in the three-quarter-length mirror affixed to the inside of it.

He stepped over to the bedside and, with visible reluctance, he placed the lube and towels on the rumpled bedspread.

“Hey.  Baby.  We don’t have to do this.”

He looked up and into my eyes.  “I need this.  But I’m not ready to tell you why.”

I swallowed.  Licked my lips.  Rasped, “OK.”

I watched as he pulled off his clothes with grim determination.  Dread condensed in the pit of my stomach.  When Trowa was naked and crouched across from me on the bed, it was all I could do to keep from reaching for his face, pushing his bangs aside, and trying to read his mind with a searching look.

He picked up the lube and flipped open the cap.  “Tell me what to do.”

I gaped at him.  “You mean… to yourself?”

He nodded.

My jaw clenched.  I reached up and back, hauling my shirt off and tossing it to the floor.  Then I shoved my jeans and boxers off.  Socks, too.

“Duo, what are you—?”

“I get why you don’t want me to touch you.”  I really did.  How would he know what it was really supposed to feel like if my every touch inundated him with bliss?  See, I had an inkling of what was really going on here: he wanted proof that sex wasn’t supposed to be painful and demeaning.  There was no way he’d be able to do that as long as I was in the equation touch-wise.  “But you’re not gonna do this alone, OK?”

For a long moment – nearly a minute – he didn’t say a word.  And then he accused, “Solo told you.”

“No,” I told him.  “I overheard pretty much all of it.  I shouldn’t have.  I’m sorry.”

He blinked, frowned in honest befuddlement.  “But you—after that, you kissed me.  Touched me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?  I still—I’m still your companion, aren’t I?  That hasn’t changed.”

“But something else has changed.”

“Yeah.  I’ve got a new name at the top of my short list.”  I swore to him, “If I’m ever in the same room with that sonuvabitch, I will obliterate him.  Dismantle him.  Hand him over to Chang for research.  I’ll end him in every single solitary way he deserves.”

Trowa shook his head.  “It was a fey bargain—”

“With a newly summoned fey who didn’t have any idea of what he’d agreed to.  I’d bet the bastard didn’t leave you with any way to back out, either.”  My hands curled into fists on my bare thighs.  “He was wrong, Trowa.  Him.  Not you.  And one day I’m gonna make sure he pays for it.”

A single tear rolled down Trowa’s scarred cheek.  He blinked in quick succession.  “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” he whispered.  “Afraid of hurting you.  So I need this.”

“It doesn’t have to happen this way.”

“I choose you, Duo.  I need to know how it will feel for you if I ever—if you ever want—”

“OK.  OK.  Just…”  I drew a deep breath.  “Can I kiss you one more time?  Before we start?”

Slowly, he shook his head.

I sighed and gestured for him to toss me the bottle.  If we were doing this, then I was gonna go first.  I pulled my braid over my shoulder, grabbed a towel, and squirted a liberal amount of lube onto my fingers.  I almost told him to let it warm up a bit on his skin first, but considering the fact that Tro was usually colder-than-average, room temperature might actually be warmer.

“It might feel weird,” I said, paraphrasing what I’d read online, “but it should not be painful.  OK?”

He nodded.

I took a deep breath and reached behind me—and then I paused, glanced at the mirror, and asked, “Is there somewhere you want me to sit?  I mean, would it help if you could see me, um…?”

This time, his nod could be described as vigorous.  His bangs bounced with the motion and it made me smile, eased away a layer of stress from my twisting guts.

I – and my towel – maneuvered around until I had my back to the closet mirror.  I couldn’t believe I was really gonna do this.  But Trowa needed it and I’d do anything for him, including show him this.  So, I did.  I spoke and he watched, his fingers digging into his thighs as I leaned forward, showing him parts of me that I’d never expected to share with anyone.  I watched him back: the intensity in his gaze as he reached for understanding, the courage he gathered one breath at a time, the determination with which he followed my instructions.

It was amazing that I didn’t stutter through it.  My voice was surprisingly calm and it took me a while before I figured out why.  This wasn’t about getting hot and sexy, about kinks or turn-ons.  This was about learning that sex was OK.  This was about healing.  This was about – as Trowa had truthfully claimed – facing down fear.

We progressed slowly from the massage to a single finger.  Then two.  “Are you uncomfortable?  Is there any pain?” I checked.

“It… burns a little.”

“Bear down.  Imagine opening yourself up.”

The little frown on his brow eased.  “It’s better now.”

“Good,” I said and then I tried to describe how to reach that spot that—

_Holy shit!_

I choked, sucked in a breath, and closed my eyes.  “OK, I found mine.”

“Are you in pain?”

I shook my head and glanced down.  I was half hard just from that touch.  I looked up just in time to see Trowa’s gaze lifting from the same focal point.

“Do it again,” Trowa ordered.

My teeth scraped over my lip.  I drew a breath, flexed my fingers, and—

“Ahh, fuck,” I groaned.

“Do you like it?”

I nodded and imagined Trowa inside me.  His hips flexing as he rocked me over his hard cock and—  Oh, God.  I could not deal with this right now.  Trowa hadn’t asked me to get myself off in front of him.  This wasn’t about that.  This was about—

“Are you able to release like this?”

“I—I dunno.”

“Try.  For me.”

For him.  Yes.  Anything.  I rocked my hips, rubbing my fingertips over that spot again and again.  My gaze locked with his and he was inside me without touching me at all.  I was giving myself to him in a way that stripped me of every comforting layer I possessed.  I was bare and baring myself and only for him.

I was panting, my eyelids drifting shut for long moments as the sensation became my new heartbeat.  When I reminded myself to open them for the fourth or fifth time to check on Trowa, a hot zing zipped through me at the sight of his hips moving in time with mine.  He groaned softly and I noticed his swelling cock.

“This feels nice,” he told me, thrusting harder and I nodded helplessly.

It was so fucking nice.  So good to be doing this with him, but every inch of my skin was aching to feel him against me.  OK, time to slow down before I lunged at him.  I gripped the bedcovers tightly for a metaphoric handhold.  I pulled my fingers back and out.  Took a moment to just breathe and calm down.

“I’m gonna try three now,” I informed him and his gaze shifted beyond me to the mirror.

I leaned forward, giving him a clear view, and pressed back inside.  I hissed at the burn, rocked my hips shallowly and tried not to tense up.  “I want this,” I murmured.  “This is OK.  It’s OK.”  And little by little, my body allowed the slick intrusion, stretching and giving way until I was fucking myself on my fingers and every thrust sent a jolt through me.

“Ah!  Ah!  Ah, God,” I groaned, looking up at Trowa, watching his hips thrust and his hard, flushed cock bob.  “Are you—OK?”

He nodded, his eyes shining with lust as his gaze moved over me.  I was practically on all fours, bowing to him in supplication.

“Fuck.  This feels so good,” I confessed, my voice hitching and riding the rhythm.  I asked, “Can you come like this?”

“I don’t—don’t think so.  You?”

I shook my head.  “Nnuh, but I don’t wanna stop.  Oh, God, Trowa.”

He sucked in a sharp breath.  “Duo—I…”

When he didn’t immediately finish that thought, I nudged, “You what, baby?  What do you need?”

“Completion.”

“Yeah, yeah, me, too.  How do you wanna come?”

“Inside you.”

Oh, Jesus.  Just those two words and I nearly blew my load.  I was just about sobbing as I nodded, “Yes, _God, yes._   Where?  How?”

“Face the mirror.”

I did.

“Remove your hand.”

I did that, too.

“Look at me.”

I was.

And then his cockhead was rubbing wetly up and down the cleft of my ass.  “You lubed?” I thought to check.

He grabbed for the bottle and slicked himself hastily.  I widened my knees, leaned forward on my elbows, panted at the feel of the rumpled covers brushing against my chest.  I didn’t ask if he was ready.  Our eyes met in the mirror and I nudged back against him.  He moved over me and I felt him fit against my entrance.  Just a kiss of flesh.

The anticipation burned through my veins.

His hips flexed.

The kiss got deeper.  Went deeper.  Harder.  Too much.  _Ow._

“Wait-wait-wait,” I panted, flinching away.  “Don’t pull out.  Just gimme a minute.”

He groaned, his fingers curling and digging into my hips, but he held still.

“I want this.  This is OK.  It’s OK,” I reminded us both, breathing my mantra out in a rush.  I wiggled and determinedly opened to his intrusion.  No, not an intrusion.  He was welcome here.  Welcome inside me.  In every way.

I pushed back against him slowly and he slid deeper.

Deeper.

Deep.

As deep as he could go.

Oh sweet, sweet, sexy fucking Trowa baby.

“Duo,” he moaned and I realized I’d been narrating and babbling every single thought that had popped into my head.  He rocked his hips shallowly and I was done for.  Lost.  Found.  His.  Trowa’s.

His arms came around my chest and his mouth pressed hot, wet kisses to my neck.  He pulled me up and back against him so that I was impaled upon his cock, straddling his legs as he knelt on the bed and oh my God it was everything – my entire universe – my whole being was this connection.

“Ah, fuck.  Me,” I marveled, overwhelmed and awed.

He rolled his hips and a shout burst out of me.  I grabbed for his arms, my hips grinding back against him and his hard cock slid and pressed within me and the friction was slick and hot and all I ever wanted.

This. 

Just this. 

Just him.

“Tro-Trowa-ah-ah-ah-ah!”

I was dimly aware of the bed creaking beneath us, of sweat dewing along my hairline and spine, of my breaths choking into short bursts, but I didn’t care.  All I cared about was feeling him, having him, taking him.  His deep-chested groans, soft gasps, and choked cries.  His breath and teeth against my neck, his fingertips brushing over my chest, his fingernails flicking over my nipples.  My heart—my heart was straining, swelling in an effort to keep up with my unending arousal.  Oh, God.  This was killing me.  Killing me.

“Trowa!” I begged, grabbing his hand and tugging it down to my cock.  “Please, Trowa, please please please—”

A tight grip.

Thrust.

My hand shot up to the back of his head and fisted in his hair.

Thrust.

I curled my fingers into the arm he’d angled across my chest.

Thrust.

Pressure – the pad of a thumb – against the weeping head of my aching cock.

Thrust.

And again again again again—

My back bowed, my skull pushed back against his shoulder, and I was coming.  I was coming and thrusting and heart-exploding and lungs-bursting and it was all for Trowa.  For Trowa.  For Trowa.

And then I sagged against him.  Done in.  Completely.  Capable of nothing but groans as he surged inside me, moaned my name against my neck, clutched me close.  I opened my eyes and watched him in the mirror, saw the raw, animal need in his expression.

“Take what you need, baby,” I whispered and he cried out, thrusting deep once, twice – nearly shoving me off of his lap with the force of his lust – and then banding an arm across my hips and sending himself as deep as he could as he came, panting and trembling.

I held onto his arms, kept him upright as ecstasy released him back to me.

“Hmmm, Duo,” he purred, and I basked in the breathy kisses he pressed to my sweaty neck.  Then he leaned me back against him, almost like a dancer would dip his partner, and with a guiding hand against my jaw, he slanted his mouth over mine.  His damp fingers moved over my thighs, my balls, my belly, smearing my still-warm come all over my skin.

I moved my lips against his, sucked on his tongue, and nipped at his lip as he pulled back.

“How did it feel?” he asked gently.

It was obvious that he already knew the answer.  He’d watched every second of it in the mirror.  He’d seen it, felt it, heard it.  He just really wanted me to say the words out loud.

“Bliss,” I said.

His smile was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“I want this,” he told me so tenderly.  “I want to be with you.  Again and again.  Forever.”

“I don’t have any plans to go anywhere.”

He studied my face.  I studied his.  He was still a mystery to me.  It was clear that what he was really thinking about was a lot heavier than a quick shower, but that was all he asked me for.

So we showered.  He really liked how slick the body soap was, so that was fun.

“Your braid is messed up,” he pointed out as he rambunctiously toweled the water out of it.

“Gee, how’d that happen?” I teased.  He rebraided it for me while I did the dishes.  Then he shifted assorted furniture and stuff aside so I could give the place a thorough vacuuming.

Before I knew it, it was time to think about dinner.  My stomach was certainly ready for another round of sustenance.  I stuck my head in the fridge and chucked random vegetables at Trowa – freehand, back pass, underhand – he caught ‘em all and, when I swung the door shut, he was frickin’ _juggling_ three potatoes and a bunch of asparagus.

“How the fuck—?” I sputtered around a laugh, groping in the utensil drawer for a knife.

He arched a brow at me.  “Forests don’t have televisions, Duo.”

“OK, true, but—ouch!  Goddamn it!”  I yanked my hand back out of the drawer, glaring at the roasting fork that _someone_ – not me – had forgotten to sheathe before tossing onto the mound of sharp, pointy kitchen objects.  I sighed at the jagged hole in my index finger and the pooling blood.  Great.  Where the hell was our super glue and what were the odds that the cap had been screwed on tight enough to keep it from cementing over the last week or so?

I held my bleeding hand out over the linoleum floor as I rummaged in the next drawer over – the kitchen junk cache – for glue or, failing that, masking tape.

“Hold still.”

I looked up and realized that Trowa had set aside the dinner veg and was lifting a hand up to mine.  I automatically held my wounded finger out and watched as Trowa’s fingers hovered over it.  I didn’t think it was my imagination that the tips glowed slightly under the fluorescent lights.  And it definitely wasn’t my imagination that my finger was no longer bleeding.  In fact, it was as good as new.  There wasn’t even a scar.

“Tro…” I breathed.

Our gazes met.  His eyes had widened just as much as mine with shock and wonder.

“You didn’t even have to touch me to do that.”

He shook his head.  “I didn’t need to borrow any magic from you.”

I gaped.

He grinned.  “Duo.  I didn’t borrow magic from you!”  He lifted his hands, smiled down at his empty palms, and barked out a laugh.  And then he wrapped his arms around me, laughing in my ear and I was clutching him close, my brain still limping a good three or four steps behind.

“Your magic is back,” I realized.  “How—what happened?”

He pulled back, grinning.  “Something very right,” he said and kissed me, pulling me close and curling his fingers into my braid.  No doubt messing it up _again,_ but I couldn’t have cared less.  Holy shit.  Tro could heal again.  Was a healer again.  He was _back._

I might not know all that much about fey and magic, but there was no question that this was huge.

“It might be a one-off,” he cautioned us both but his eyes were sparkling.

I argued, “But what if it’s not?”

Jesus, this changed everything.  Trowa wasn’t just some has-been former fey general of legendary renown who could bluff his way into reclaiming a bit of clout.  There was no has-been about him.  Nothing that needed to be bluffed.

I blurted, “I guess this means you don’t need me around so much, huh?”

He stiffened.  “What?”

“Well, you need magic to survive and it looks like you’ve got plenty of your own now, so…”

His hands moved to my shoulders and his fingers dug into the flesh around my joints.  “I need you.”

“Every day?” I checked.

“Yes.  Duo.  What are you saying?  You wish me to leave?”

“No!  God, no.  I just—”  Fuck.  This wasn’t how I’d planned to tell him about school starting in September… or the fact that I was probably gonna have to get a summer job here pretty soon to help Solo feed the three of us.  His searching gaze was so—so—I dunno, but I chickened out at the last moment and said instead, “I guess I was just hoping you’d have some freedom.  Finally.”

“Freedom?  From you?”  He laughed.  “That is the last thing I want.”  But then he sobered.  “Do you want to be free of me?”

I slumped against the counter at my back.  Truth time.  “Doesn’t matter if I want it or not, Tro.  I need to get a job to help Solo pay for shit and then school starts in couple of months and I won’t be able to live here anymore…”

His jaw clenched as he added up the hours that my responsibilities would take me away from him, from us.  The muscles in his neck corded.  His hands were like rock.  “When will I be able to be with you?”

“Um… weekends?  Saturdays and Sundays?”

“No.  No, Duo.  Absolutely not.  I will go with you.”

I lowered my head to his shoulder and sighed out a deep breath.  “I don’t think that’s gonna work.”  Even if he did enroll at Boston U, we wouldn’t be sharing a dorm room.  Hell, we probably wouldn’t even be in the same building.  Those were gonna be some long, lonely nights.

“Then what will work?” he demanded.

“Somethin’ you’re not gonna like,” I mumbled.

He tucked his fingers under my chin and lifted my face.  “Whatever it is, I will do it.”

“I, uh, I’m pretty sure I could live here if, um, we were married.”

“Married,” he repeated and then clarified, “wed.”

I nodded wearily.

“Yes,” he eagerly agreed.  “Marry me, Duo.”

I gaped at him.  “But… in London—Solo said—and you were…”

“I was…?”

“Less than enthusiastic about it.”

“If some trite human custom allows us to be together, I will do it.”

“Trite,” I coughed.  Disbelief whooshing into shock which twisted into something hot and angry.  “Look, maybe it’s not as great as some mysterious declaration or whatever, but it’s what we humans have got.”

Trowa studied me and, under the weight of the silence between us, my composure cracked.

“My mom and dad were married and they were happy.  That’s what I remember.  I remember happiness and being together and that’s what marriage is supposed to be.  I’m sorry if it doesn’t fucking compare to a fey declaration, but since I don’t even know what the fuck that is, I can’t really make a comparison, can I?”

I shoved myself away from both him and the counter.  “All I know about the fey and your customs is basically what you’ve told me, OK?  I’m doing my best here, Tro, but it’s never gonna be good enough if you don’t help me see the big picture.”

“Duo—”

I held up a hand.  “No.  Just.  Gimme a couple minutes.”

I retreated to Solo’s room, nearly tripping over the laundry trap that I’d intended for him, and slammed open his closet door.  On the top shelf, in a box marked “Ye Olde Days” I pulled out a photo album.  There’d been more than one summer when Solo had been forced to ask one of his school friends to hold onto it—it probably would have gotten damaged or lost in whichever group home either he or I had ended up in for the summer.  But it had made it through those rough years.  I sat down on the floor and leaned back against Solo’s bed, opening the album across my knees.  Birthday party candids of me and Solo.  His elementary school photos.  My kindergarten class picture.  Older memories: our parents’ honeymoon in Aruba.  Their wedding.  Their senior prom.

I don’t know how long I sat there opening one door to the past after another, but when the bedroom door swung open, I didn’t tell him to go away.

Trowa easily avoided the laundry snare and lowered himself to the floor beside me.  I turned another album page and felt his shoulder brush mine.  When I didn’t scoot away or stiffen, he relaxed, pressing against my side.

After three more slowly turned pages, he asked, “Why did your parents get married?”

“The normal reason, I guess.  They loved each other.  They wanted to have a family together.  That sort of stuff.”

“The declaration,” Trowa began slowly as if expecting me to turn away or tell him to shut up, “is a ceremony.  It unites a fey and companion together.”

“With magic?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.  Must be nice to have a little help.  We humans have to work for it.  Remember to ask things like, ‘How was your day?’ and remind each other to take an umbrella because it might rain later and… I dunno—”

“—and set aside the foods you know he likes?  Let him heal you when you are injured?  Lie down together at night in the same bed?”

I turned toward Trowa and was caught by his soft expression.

He admitted, “I’m still not sure what love is or what it means, but… what we have now—is it enough?”

“It’s a start,” I allowed.

“Then marry me.  Help me make it more.  Day by day.”

My fingers curled around the album.  My chest was so tight and tense that I couldn’t move or speak.  I stared at him.  Just… stared as the same three words rolled and cycled through my head: _my husband Trowa._   Jesus fried a chicken, I was only eighteen.  I wasn’t even finished with school.  I couldn’t support us financially.  And also—forever.  For the rest of my life.  That’s what this was.  I mean, yeah, I was his companion which was also a forever deal, but it was so mystical and cool-sounding that I guess it hadn’t really sunk in but boy oh boy was it sinking in now that we were calling it marriage.  Calling it something that I could comprehend and—

I stopped clutching the corners of the photo album and the weight of it caused it to fold shut between my knees.  I grabbed the front of Trowa’s shirt, scrambled onto his lap, and answered roughly, “Yes.  Absolutely yes.  Trowa, _yes.”_

He pulled me closer and I kissed him.  He smiled against my lips.  Cool hands pushed my hair back from my face and I leaned away so I could measure the curve of his lips.  Memorize it.  Commit this moment to memory for all time.

“If I ever find a way back to fey lands, I’ll give you a declaration, Duo.  I vow this to you.”

“Gee, thanks, but I still don’t know what that is, you idiot,” I reminded him on a helpless laugh.

His smile stretched wider.  “You take my hands.”  He lifted his up and wiggled his fingers, prompting me to follow his directions.

I did.

“And I lead you to the arbor.”

“What arbor?”

“Whichever you like.”

“What are my choices?”

“Fresh and green bamboo.  Or soft cherry blossoms.  Fragrant honeysuckle.  Shady wisteria.  Aged and angled apple trees… and many more.”

“OK, let’s say I choose the apple trees.  What’s next?”

He looked into my eyes and whispered, “I remove your shoes and socks and we stand beneath the boughs.”  He shifted so that his bare feet brushed against mine; he was sitting Indian-style and I was straddling his hips.  He continued, “Our toes dig into the earth and touch the roots.  The root of magic itself.”

I held my breath.

“And I say, ‘Duo Maxwell, I choose you as my companion for the remainder of days if you will choose me to be your consort, if you will trust me with your life, if you will open your home and hearth to me.’”

“Then I say something like, ‘Yes, Trowa, I choose you for my consort, I trust you with my life, I open my home and hearth to you’?”

Trowa nodded.  “’Duo, I give you my body and my truth.’”

My throat worked as I tried to swallow.  On the second attempt, I managed it.  “And what do I say?”

“You say, ‘I accept your body and your truth into my keeping for all time.’”

I repeated the words, marveling at the light in his eyes.  I prompted him, “What do I say next?  What do I give you?”

“A kiss.”

The moment stretched between us, held suspended like a breath about to be exhaled.  I lifted our joined hands and brushed my fingertips over his jaw, his chin, his lips.  I angled my chin down, tilted my head, and closed the breathless inch between our mouths.

My lips hummed, buzzed softly with warmth, parted and his breath was a soft caress that sent a shiver through my entire being.  My tongue touched his – an electric pulse that made me gasp – and he slanted his mouth over mine, whining pleadingly until I rallied enough to accept the invitation.

His taste…  Ah, sweet Jesus.  I could spend the rest of my life making love to his mouth, feeling him cede to me, welcoming me.  His fingers tightened their hold on my hands and his neck arched as his entire body bowed into mine.  I placed one of our interlaced hands on his jaw and guided his other hand to mine.  I withdrew from his mouth with a hot caress and he followed, took his time tasting me, taking.

A tingle at the base of my spine warned me that this was about to head for a much hotter clime – and we were still sitting on the floor in my brother’s bedroom of all damn places – but then the tingle changed.  It wasn’t just arousal.  It was something else.  Something that shimmered as it swept over my skin.  Trowa’s gasp mirrored mine as even my toes and the hair follicles on my scalp shivered with orgasm-like heat and energy.

And then—

_Flash!_

I startled, pulling back.  Panting, I looked around for the camera.  Had someone just taken our picture?  What had that white light been?

Trowa’s hands tightened.  “Duo…”

“Whoa.  Did you—?”

He stared at me with wide eyes.  “I felt it.”

“What was that?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.  “Our declaration.”

I reared back.  “But you said—I mean—it had to happen in fey lands.”

He trembled.  “I was wrong.”

“Seriously?  So, it’s, like, official?”  He nodded and I licked my dry lips.  “What does—are you sorry it—I mean, maybe you weren’t ready for—”

He pulled me down to him, kissing me hungrily and that shimmering wave of heat engulfed me, fading quickly but buzzing softly against every inch of my skin.  My heart throbbed and I swore I could feel the echo of Trowa’s scars once more branding my insides, sizzling and shining, illuminating me from within.

Oh, God.  What was this?

Trowa pulled back slowly, softening the kiss until our lips parted with a static-y prickle.  “Did you feel that?” he checked.

I nodded.

“We were ready,” he told me.

“Ready for what?  The declaration?”

“Yes.”  He remarked, “But that still does not explain why it happened outside of an arbor… or even the fey lands.  Do you feel different?”

I did, but I didn’t know how to explain it.  “Yeah, it’s like…” I touched my right hand – still joined with his left – to the design on his cheek.  “It’s like this is on my heart?  Like these designs—”  I petted the scars on his right palm with my thumb.  “—are on the inside of my skin?  I mean, I can kinda feel them – stronger than in the woods after the first time I, er, came in you which… shit, that makes no sense.”

“It does,” he countered, his eyes closing.  “Oh, save us, it does.”

“Trowa, please,” I begged.

“It must have been the healing magic.  Inside you.  It changed you.  You’re not a normal human anymore, Duo.”  He opened his eyes.  “But you’re not fey.  Because of the magic I gave you all those years ago, I think you are—you must be… _of_ magic.  And the declaration—it may have grounded your power.”

“My huh?”

Trowa sucked in a breath, his eyes unfocusing as some thought overwhelmed him.  “I’ve made you magical.”

He stared.

I bit my lip.  “Huh.  How’bout that.”

He stared some more.

“Tro, baby, don’t break on me now.  Gonna need you to help me figure this out.”

His throat worked.  “I’m not sure I can.”

“Well, look.  I feel OK.  Good, actually,” I assured him.  Maybe this wasn’t such a big deal.  So I had more magic than I did before.  I was still gonna have to get a part-time job and go to school in the fall and all that shit.  And—“Are you still gonna marry me?”

“Yes,” he swore.

“Then it’s no big deal.”  At least not right now.  We’d just have to wait and see what would come of it.  Maybe nothing.  So there was no point in getting my hopes up that I’d become some kind of elflord or whatever.

I shrugged and smiled, rewarding Trowa’s bemused grin with a kiss on the cheek.  His left one.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I asked, standing up and tugging on his arms.

He laughed.  It sounded just a little bit hysterical.  I waited for him to get it out of his system.  After a minute, he managed a calming breath.  “I am.  Hungry.”

“So let’s deal with that, yeah?”  Broiled steaks and baked potatoes and steamed asparagus – that was stuff we could totally handle.  I pulled him to his feet.

Trowa cradled my face in our hands, delaying our return to the kitchen.  “I am with you, Duo, from this moment forward, until the end.”

“The end of what?” I wanted to know.

“Existence.”

“Well, OK, then.”

He smiled.  I grinned.  My stomach growled.

Trowa gave me a chaste kiss on the lips and then bent to reverently collect the photo album.  He passed it to me and I placed it in the box.  The box went back up on the closet shelf and Trowa held the door for me as I repositioned the laundry basket in the middle of the Trip Zone.

I took Trowa’s hand; we had potatoes to nuke in the microwave.

Solo’s keys grated in the lock at 10:17 and he just about face-planted onto the carpet.  “Jetlag.  Fuuuuuuck,” he moaned.

I steered him toward the bathroom.  “Hey, wimp, do you need me to call 1-900-Hold-my-dick?”

“Hey, shithead.  1-800-Piss-off.”  Solo slammed the door shut in my face.

I smirked.  When I turned around, Trowa’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was biting his lip to keep from guffawing out loud.  I guess he’d been watching the infomercials at the laundromat after all.

“OK, giggles,” I teased him.  “Nuke the asparagus.”

“Are—are all brothers like the two of you?” he asked around his unvoiced laughter, tapping the start button on the microwave.

“One can only hope.”

As Trowa munched through thin slices of raw potato, a portion of uncooked asparagus, and a small tenderloin steak that – true to my word – had been thoughtfully not-cooked, Solo and I tore into our meals.  I was relieved that what cooking skills I’d accumulated in fits and starts over the years had come through for me.

“We’re gonna nail that bastard Winner to the fucking wall,” Solo announced as he leaned back in his chair, plate cleaned.

“Funny you should mention that.  Tro and I were thinking along the same lines earlier today.”

My fey boyfriend – check that, my _fiancé_ – nodded and his green eyes turned hard and flat.

“Tro-bro?” Solo prompted.  “You got any suggestions for us?”

“Hmm.  1-800-Call-Chang?”

I snorted out a laugh as Solo gawped, then grinned.  “Nice one.”

I offered Tro a high-five.  Still, that was pretty damn cold: turning over one of his own to the clan.  Not that I hadn’t had the very same thought earlier or could even blame him for it.  And, actually, the more I learned about the fey world, the more certain I was of its utter viciousness.  I mean, fuck.  If Heero Yuy’s information on Winner was accurate – if Quatre Winner had been Trowa’s most powerful ally and most dangerous enemy and the sonuvabitch had freakin’ _killed_ him to gain himself the lovely city of Boston then what the actual hell?  Talk about selling out your friends to make the proverbial buck.  Tro’s suggestion to call Chang was cold, but the world he came from was even colder.

Solo said, “We’ll hit the old man’s notes tomorrow or the day after.  I got Monday off, thank God.”  He banged out a drum roll on his belly.  “What’s for dessert?”

“You’re in luck,” I said, “we got plenty of fix-it-yourself.”

He kicked me under the table.  I bruised with a smile.

The next day, I woke Trowa up with those butterfly kisses I’d been saving, cherishing every brushstroke of the scars on his back.  When I nipped the nape of his neck, he rolled over and pinned me to the mattress.

“Are you hungry?” he asked with a wicked gleam in his eye.

His hard cock dragged along the inside of my thigh and I tried to look innocent.  “How’d you guess?  You got anything on ya that might hit the spot?”

He did.

Thank God Solo had already made tracks for work at the sports gym; yay for first-shift Sundays.

I took Trowa to Boston U to show him where I’d be going to school.  Then we walked our neighborhood and I collected employment applications from all the places that had “help wanted” signs up in the windows.

“You interested in a job, too?” the owner of the local quickie mart asked Trowa.

Trowa looked at me.  I shrugged.  “Up to you, Tro.”

He took an application.  As we walked the homestretch, he studied the paper in his hands.  I’d rolled mine up and was thumping them against my thigh in random Morse code.  “Could I get a job?” he asked me.

“Don’t see why not.  You’ve got ID an’ all.”

“No, I meant, _may_ I?”

I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, but righted myself before I swan-dived into the pavement.  “Are you asking me for permission?”

He nodded, lowering the arm that he’d stretched out to catch me.

“You don’t have to do that, babe.”

“But you call me that.”

“What?”

“Babe.  Baby.  Aren’t I supposed to be dependent on you?”

Jaw slack, I stuttered, “Uh, I don’t mean it, y’know, literally.”

He snorted.  “Clearly, you do not wish for me to be an actual infant—”

And how wild was it that he could totally do that.  Age shift and all.

“—so how do you mean it?”

I struggled to grasp the fact that we were even having this conversation at all.  “Um, babe – baby – they’re terms of endearment.  I—you’re important to me.  And I care about you and wanna protect you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do your own thing.”

“For instance, get a job?”

“I recommend it for the sole fact that you’ll have your own money.”

“Ah.  Yes.  The favors here.”

“Makes the world go ‘round.”  I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.  “I’m not trying to trap you, Trowa.”

He startled and our eyes met.  “Oh.  I see.  Yes, you’re right.  This is not the forest.”

“Yeah.  I mean, I know you’re gonna come home to me at the end of the day.  And vice versa.  You can do things without me.  With other people.  Friends or whatever.”

His shoulders stiffened.  His jaw clenched.  His eyes narrowed.  “You will do things with other people?  What kinds of things?” he demanded and I heard the soft rumble of raw fury in his voice.

Thank God our apartment was just up ahead because this conversation was veering off in an unexpected direction.  I nodded for him to precede me up the steps.  Our shoulders bumped and rubbed as I unlocked the door.  The instant we were across the threshold, Trowa stalked me across the living room, crowding me against the refrigerator as I tried to articulate a realistic list of things friends did together – play video games, work on homework, watch movies, go to the batting cages—

“Will you fornicate with others?” he interrupted.

“Will I—what—?  Are you insane?  We’re—we’re—hold up, what’dyou call it?  Call us?  Two people after their declaration are what, exactly?”

“Joined.”

“Ah.  Good to know.”

“Duo!”

“Jesus fried a chicken, Trowa.  We’re joined.  I wouldn’t do that to you – wouldn’t screw around with someone else.  Would you?”

His face twisted into a grimace of disgust.  “Never.”

“Well, there ya go.  That look right there?  I feel the same, OK?”

“But I can promise that I will never feel differently.  Can you offer me the same?”

I couldn’t even though I desperately wanted to.  Hell, every other kid in school had had parents who were divorced, separated, or openly hated one another.  I placed my hands on his biceps and pulled him closer.  “Trowa.  What’s up with the jealousy?  I don’t have any secrets from you.”

“There are things you haven’t told me yet.  These friends you spoke of.”

I couldn’t quite stop myself from rolling my eyes.  “Yeah?  A couple dudes from school—”

“Have you kissed them?”

“Have I—!  Ew!  Jesus, Tro.”

He quirked a brow at me and waited for my answer.

“You were my first kiss, you jealous jerk.  Fuck.  You were my first everything, OK?  God, you’ve got absolutely nothing to be freaking out over.”  I reached up and pushed his hair out of his other eye so that I could see his full expression.  “Can you trust me or can’t you?”

He studied my face for a long moment.  “You trust me.”

How many times had I invited him to take whatever he needed from me?  How many times had I said those four words – “I trust you, Trowa” – to him?  In fact, hadn’t I just made a magical vow with him less than 24 hours ago that amounted to that very thing? 

I said, “I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you want me to be safe and happy.  Don’t you get it, babe?  I want the same things for you.”  I smoothed my hand over his hair.  “I want you to be safe and happy.  I would swear to it if I knew what the magic words were.”

So.  There it was.  I waited for his response.

A heartbeat later, his stiff shoulders relaxed.  He bowed his head.  Our foreheads touched.  “I believe you.  I—I apologize, Duo.  I am unused to—”  He sighed.  “—needing someone.  So much.”

“It scares me a little, too,” I whispered and nudged my lips against his cheek.  His mouth brushed against mine in a caress that melded into a kiss which wrapped us up in each other’s arms.  He reached for my hips and, in the next instant, he was lifting me up.

“I need you.  Again.  Now.”

I wrapped my legs around his hips and gave him my one point of non-negotiation, “Our bed.”

Heat flashed in his eyes.

“You like the sound of that, baby?” I teased gently, scraping my fingernails against the skin at the back of his neck.

“That, and more.”

The other sounds he liked to hear were the very next items on our to-do list.

On Monday morning, Solo headed out for his black-belt karate class at the dojo.  I rolled outta bed, my hand grasping Trowa’s, and headed for city hall.  We filled out the Marriage Intention form and I paid the $50.00 processing fee.  We had to wait three days and then we could come back and make it legal.

Anticipating that Solo would have gotten home before us, I took the time to show Trowa points of interest along the way so that when my big brother asked what we’d been doing – which he did, the nosy jerk – I didn’t have to lie.  Just omit.

“What do you say we go to the beach?” he surprised me by suggesting.

“Yeah?  Jolly ol’ England makin’ you appreciate the sunshine?”

“Shit, you know it, D-man.  Tro,  d’you burn or tan?”

“Freckle.”

“Okie dokie.  Let’s throw some sunblock an’ shit in a bag.”

The beach was crowded – it being summer break and all.  The fifth time I slipped in the shifting sand and ploughed a shoulder into Trowa, he pulled my arm over his neck, then lifted me up to give me a ride piggyback-style.

I laughed and ruffled his hair.  Solo just rolled his eyes and, with a belabored sigh, scooped up my dropped flip-flops.  He abandoned us on a sandy patch of grass to swagger up to the female lifeguard.  She looked vaguely familiar.  A former girlfriend of his, maybe?

Eh, whatever.  I lounged back on my elbows and grinned at Trowa.  He smiled back.  The wind tugged and tousled his hair, revealing the kiss scar on his cheek.  Quatre Winner was gonna pay for all the pain he’d put my consort – my fiancé, my three-days-from-now-husband – through.  And when he was done paying for that, he was gonna pay all over again for what he’d done to Mom and Dad.  But I wasn’t gonna let him ruin our afternoon.  There’d be plenty of time to plan our revenge later.

But Trowa’s scars were compelling for another reason.  I reached out and turned his right hand over, doodling over the strange swirls and jagged angles of green on his palm and along his fingers.  I knew this design.  I’d seen it before.  In painting after painting at Caerlaverock Castle.

The Sicarian.  The curved blade with its ornate sheathe.  The designs that the artist had hinted at were the same as the ones on Trowa’s hand, his cheek, his knees.

What did it mean?

And where was the blade itself?

If it wasn’t sitting in a safety deposit box somewhere waiting for the day it would be sent off to its next owner, then I had a pretty good idea of where to start looking.

I thought back to those Maxwell portraits.  Generations of Caerlaverock Maxwells all with the same knife, all painted in the same style, the same soft lighting and range of color.  It hadn’t occurred to me at the time I’d been standing in the gallery, but now that I knew it was a possibility, I couldn’t ignore the likelihood that the artist for each portrait had, in fact, been the same person.  Not the same human, of course.  But the same fey?

Whoever had done those paintings just might have been the last person to see the Sicarian.

And, if I were on a quest to find a legendary fey artifact with the intention of ruling the known world, well, that’s where I’d start.  But I wasn’t.  And, you know what?  Some things were better left in the past.

I blinked as Trowa nudged my too-long bangs from out of my eyes.  “What are you thinking about?” he asked me quietly.

Folding my hand around his, I told him, “The future.”

His fingers tightened around mine.

Yeah, the future was out there, and we were gonna meet it.  One day at a time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is how Solo and Duo got Trowa to America, brought him home, and made him part of their lives. Ta-da!!
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed it. (Unless you've made it this far on fumes of pure masochism.)
> 
> As always, sequel things could happen, but it really depends on you, brave reader. So ask me your questions and tell me your loves. The future of fey!verse is in your hands. (^_^)


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